Safety incident reporting in emergency radiology: analysis of 1717 safety incident reports

Anticipating Patient Safety Events in Psychiatric Care

OBJECTIVES

Although suicide prevention often dominates patient safety efforts in psychiatry and behavioral health, patients who seek such services are also prone to other kinds of adverse events. The purpose of this study was to more fully characterize the types of safety events that occur in the context of psychiatric care.

METHODS

This was a retrospective study of safety events that had been reported to a hospital-based psychiatry department during a 4-year period. The authors reviewed each incident, developed new and more precise event categories, and assigned each report to a category. Events that could not be categorized were assigned to an "Other" category. The percentages of categorizable events between the new and old frameworks were compared.

RESULTS

A total of 366 reports were filed. In the updated framework, 324 events (89%) could be categorized compared to 225 (61%) in the original registry.

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding the kinds of safety events that clinicians are likely to encounter in the context of psychiatric care may help to expand patient safety efforts beyond suicide risk prevention.

A hospital incident reporting system (2016-2019): Learning from notifier's perception on incidents' risk, severity and frequency of adverse events

Incident reporting systems (IRSs) are considered safety culture promoters. Nevertheless, they have not been contemplated to monitor professionals' perception about patient safety related risks. This study aims to describe the characteristics and evolution of incident notifications reported between 2016 and 2019 in a high complexity reference hospital in Barcelona and explores the association between notifications' characteristics and notifier's perception about incidents severity, probability of occurrence and risk. The main analysis unit was notifications reported. A descriptive analysis was performed and taxes by hospital activity were calculated. Odds ratios were obtained to study the association between the type of incident, the moment of incident, notifiers' professional category, reported incident's severity, probability and incidents' calculated risk. Through the study period, a total of 6379 notifications were reported, observing an annual increase of notifications until 2018. Falls (21.22%), Medical and procedures management (18.91%) and Medication incidents (15.49%) were the most frequently notified. Departments reporting the highest number of notifications were Emergency room and Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Incident type and notifiers' characteristics were consistently included in the models constructed to assess risk perception. Pharmaceutics were the most frequent notifiers when considering the proportion of staff members. Notification patterns can inform professionals' patient risk perception and increase awareness of professionals' misconceptions regarding patient safety.

Trends and patterns in the practice of pediatric sedation for magnetic resonance imaging in Japan: A longitudinal descriptive study from 2012 to 2019

BACKGROUND

Worldwide, pediatric sedation for magnetic resonance imaging is a standard practice; however, there are few studies on its trends and patterns.

AIMS

This study aimed to investigate the trends and patterns of pediatric sedation for magnetic resonance imaging in Japan and determine the incidence of and risk factors for adverse events/interventions.

METHODS

This longitudinal descriptive study assessed children (age < 15 years) who underwent sedation for magnetic resonance imaging between April 2012 and December 2019 in Japan using a nationwide claims database. We assessed the patients' demographic characteristics, time trends in sedatives, sedative patterns by age, and adverse events/interventions within two post-sedation days. Further, we used multivariable logistic regression models to explore factors related to the incidence of adverse events/interventions.

RESULTS

We identified 29 187 cases (median age, 2.0 years; 55.2% males). The most common sedative was triclofos sodium (n = 18 812, 51.7%). There was an increasing trend in barbiturate use (17.0% [2012] to 25.0% [2019]) and decreasing trends in the use of triclofos sodium (56.4% [2012] to 47.7% [2019]) and chloral hydrate (15.6% [2012] to 10.8% [2019]). We identified 534 adverse events/interventions in 460 cases (1.5%). Multivariable logistic regression analyses revealed that the incidence of adverse events/interventions mainly increased with the number of sedatives (≥3; adjusted odds ratio, 5.10; 95% confidence interval, 3.67-7.10) and unscheduled setting (adjusted odds ratio, 6.28; 95% confidence interval, 4.85-8.61); further, it decreased with high hospital procedure volume (adjusted odds ratio, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.49-0.78).

CONCLUSIONS

Based on a Japanese real-world setting, there is an increasing trend in barbiturate use and decreasing trends in the use of triclofos sodium and chloral hydrate in pediatric sedation for magnetic resonance imaging. Low hospital procedure volumes were associated with an increased risk of adverse events/interventions.

How often does it happen? A review of unintended, unnecessary and unavoidable high-dose radiation exposures

High-dose radiation exposures of humans occur every year around the world, and may lead to harmful tissue reactions. This review aims to look at the available information sources that can help answering the question of how often these events occur yearly on a global scale. In the absence of comprehensive databases of global occurrence, publications on radiation accidents in all uses of radiation and on rates of high-dose events in different medical uses of radiation have been reviewed. Most high-dose radiation exposures seem to occur in the medical uses of radiation, reflecting the high number of medical exposures performed. In therapeutic medical uses, radiation doses are purposely often given at levels known to cause deterministic effects, and there is a very narrow range in which the medical practitioner can operate without causing severe unacceptable outcomes. In interventional medical uses, there are scenarios in which the radiation dose given to a patient may reach or exceed a threshold for skin effects, where this radiation dose may be unavoidable, considering all benefits and risks as well as benefits and risks of any alternative procedures. Regardless of if the delivered dose is unintended, unnecessary or unavoidable, there are estimates published of the rates of high-dose events and of radiation-induced tissue injuries occurring in medical uses. If this information is extrapolated to a global scenario, noting the inherent limitations in doing so, it does not seem unreasonable to expect that the global number of radiation-induced injuries every year may be in the order of hundreds, likely mainly arising from medical uses of radiation, and in particular from interventional fluoroscopy procedures and external beam radiotherapy procedures. These procedures are so frequently employed throughout the world that even a very small rate of radiation-induced injuries becomes a substantial number when scaled up to a global level.

Patient safety incidents in radiology: frequency and distribution of incident types

BACKGROUND

Patient safety incidents may be a valuable source of information to learn from and to prevent future errors.

PURPOSE

To determine the distribution of patient safety incident types in radiology according to the International Classification for Patient Safety (ICPS), and to comprehensively review those incidents that were either harmful or serious in terms of risk of patient harm and reoccurrence.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The most recent five-year database (2014-2019) of a radiology incident reporting system was evaluated.

RESULTS

A total of 480 patient safety incidents were included. Top three ICPS incident types were clinical administration (119/480, 24.8%), resources/organizational management (112/480, 23.3%), and clinical process/procedure (91/480, 19.0%). Harm severities were none in 457 (95.2%) cases, mild in 14 (2.9%), moderate in 4 (0.8%), severe in 3 (0.6%), and unknown in one case. Subsequent Prevention Recovery Information System for Monitoring and Analysis (PRISMA) reviews were performed in 4 (0.8%) cases. The three patient safety incidents that caused severe harm (of which one underwent PRISMA review) involved resources/organizational management (n = 1), clinical process/procedure (n = 1), and medication/IV fluids (n = 1). Three other cases (with no harm in two cases and moderate harm in one case) that underwent PRISMA review involved resources/organizational management (n = 2) and medical device/equipment/property (n = 1).

CONCLUSION

Radiology-related patient safety incidents predominantly occur in three ICPS domains (clinical administration, resources/organizational management, and clinical process/procedure). Harmful/serious incidents are relatively rare. The standardly and transparently reported findings from this study may be used for healthcare quality improvement, benchmarking purposes, and as a primer for future studies.

Rates and reasons for safety incident reporting in the medical imaging department of a large academic health sciences centre

BACKGROUND

Safety incident reporting is essential in medical imaging (MI) departments due to the fast-paced environment and high patient volume. However, there is an evident knowledge gap in the identification and investigation of contributing factors to incidents reports in MI departments. The objective of this study was to investigate the following rates of incident reporting in a MI department at a large academic health sciences centre: departmental incident rate, incident rates per imaging modality, and incident rates per incident type. Characteristics associated with the most frequently occurring incident types were examined to identify opportunities for quality improvement.

METHODS

This observational, retrospective study collected approximately 665 MI incident reports submitted by staff between July 2018 and July 2019. Individual incident reports were categorized according to imaging modality and incident type. Subcategories of the top four incident types were also created to identify possible contributory factors based on the staff member's safety incident report submission.

RESULTS

The safety incident rate for the entire medical imaging department was 0.263%. The safety incident reporting rate was calculated (# of incidents reported per modality total/ # of completed exams in that modality x 100%) for each modality and varied from 0.113 to 1.26%. The four highest safety incident rates were from adverse drug reaction (ADR) (21.5%), followed by delay in care/treatment (18.9%), identification/documentation/order (18.5%) and extravasation (11.4%). Possible contributory factors involved transfer of accountability (TOA)/communication barriers, and incorrect ordering information. Further analysis was also completed to assess whether patients that experienced an ADR or extravasation incident followed the correct protocols.

DISCUSSION

This study demonstrated the importance of how analysis of incident report data can be used to uncover opportunities for quality improvement in the medical imaging department. However, more information must be collected at the time of safety incident report submission to allow for quality improvement. Investigators hope that by future standardization of safety incident reporting, with the increased use of drop-down menus to capture more open-ended responses, corrective strategies can be implemented to address safety concerns in MI departments. In comparison to incident reporting rates published in similar studies, there may be a significant underrepresentation of safety incident reports filed from underreporting. Reducing barriers to reporting is essential in improving the effectiveness of the current safety incident reporting system.

A national study of the causes, consequences and amelioration of adverse events in the use of MRI, CT, and conventional radiography in Norway

BACKGROUND

Rapid technological developments, increased complexity, and increased demand have made patient safety a challenge in radiology.

PURPOSE

To uncover the causes and consequences behind patient injury compensation claims in the use of MRI, CT, and conventional X-ray examinations, and to determine the system factors that need to be focused on in order to prevent these events.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

This descriptive cross-sectional study uses data acquired from The Norwegian System of Patient Injury Compensation. A total of 240 cases from 2012-2016 were included.

RESULTS

According to our study, the main factors contributing to patient injury compensation claims in radiology were false-negative findings (48.7%), misinterpretation (13.1%), and "satisfaction of search" (12%). Another source of error was routines (8.7%), mainly where the patient should have been (further) examined using another modality. Other causes were related to communication (7.6%), procedures (2.9%), technical factors (2.5%), organizational and management factors (1.5%), competence (0.7%), location of the lesion (0.7%), patient factors (0.7%), false-positive findings (0.4%), and work environment (0.4%). These events led to delayed diagnosis and/or treatment in the range of 0-3650 days.

CONCLUSION

Errors of perception (false negative and "satisfaction of search") and cognitive errors (misinterpretation) were the main reasons behind patient injury compensation claims in radiology. We suggest that a combination of double-reading, specialization, increased collaboration between professionals, as well as a reduction of unnecessary examinations should be considered to reduce adverse events in radiology.

Incident Reporting in Emergency Medicine: A Thematic Analysis of Events

BACKGROUND

Incident reporting is a recognized tool for healthcare quality improvement. These systems, which aim to capture near-misses and harm events, enable organizations to gather critical information about failure modes and design mitigation strategies. Although many hospitals have employed these systems, little is known about safety themes in emergency medicine incident reporting. Our objective was to systematically analyze and thematically code 1 year of incident reports.

METHODS

A mixed-methods analysis was performed on 1 year of safety reporting data from a large, urban tertiary-care emergency department using a modified grounded theory approach.

RESULTS

Between January 1 and December 31, 2015, there were 108,436 emergency department visits. During this time, 750 incident reports were filed. Twenty-nine themes were used to code the reports, with 744 codes applied. The most common themes were related to delays (138/750, 18.4%), medication safety (136/750, 18.1%), and failures in communication (110/750, 14.7%). A total of 48.8% (366/750) of reports were submitted by nurses.

CONCLUSIONS

The most prominent themes during 1 year of incident reports were related to medication safety, delays, and communication. Relative to hospital-wide reporting patterns, a higher proportion of reports were submitted by physicians. Despite this, overall incident reporting remains low, and more is needed to engage physicians in reporting.

Classifying Safety Events Related to Diagnostic Imaging From a Safety Reporting System Using a Human Factors Framework

Purpose:

To measure diagnostic imaging safety events reported to an electronic safety reporting system (ESRS) and assess steps where they occurred within the diagnostic imaging workflow and contributing socio-technical factors.

Methods:

We evaluated all ESRS safety reports related to diagnostic imaging during calendar 2015 at an academic medical center with 50,000 admissions, 950,000 ambulatory visits, and performing 680,000 diagnostic imaging studies annually. Each report was assigned a 0-4 harm score by the reporter; we classified scores of 2 (minor harm) to 4 (death) as “potential harm”. Two reviewers manually classified reports into steps involved in the diagnostic imaging chain and socio-technical factors per the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework. Kappa measured inter-reviewer agreement on 10% of reports. The percentage of reports that could cause “potential harm” was compared for each step and socio-technical factor using chi-square analysis.

Results:

Of 11,570 safety reports submitted in 2015, 854 (7%) were related to diagnostic imaging. Although the most common step was Imaging Procedure (54% of reports), potential harm occurred more in Report Communication (Odds Ratio=2.36, p=0.05). Person factors most commonly contributed to safety reports (71%). Potential harm occurred more in safety reports that were related to Task compared to Person factors (OR=5.03, p<0.0001). Kappa was 0.79.

Conclusion:

Safety events were related to diagnostic imaging in 7% of reports and potential harm occurred primarily during Imaging Procedure and Report Communication. Safety events were attributed to multifactorial socio-technical factors. Further work is necessary to decrease safety events related to diagnostic imaging.

Gauging potential risk for patients in pediatric radiology by review of over 2,000 incident reports

BACKGROUND

Incident reporting can be used to inform imaging departments about adverse events and near misses.

OBJECTIVE

To study incident reports submitted during a 5-year period at a large pediatric imaging system to evaluate which imaging modalities and other factors were associated with a greater rate of filed incident reports.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

All incident reports filed between 2013 and 2017 were reviewed and categorized by modality, patient type (inpatient, outpatient or emergency center) and use of sedation/anesthesia. The number of incident reports was compared to the number of imaging studies performed during that time period to calculate an incident report rate for each factor. Statistical analysis of whether there were differences in these rates between factors was performed.

RESULTS

During the study period, there were 2,009 incident reports filed and 1,071,809 imaging studies performed for an incident report rate of 0.19%. The differences in rates by modality were statistically significant (P=0.0001). There was a greater rate of incident reports in interventional radiology (1.54%) (P=0.0001) and in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (0.62%) (P=0.001) as compared to other imaging modalities. There was a higher incident report rate for inpatients (0.34%) as compared to outpatient (0.1%) or emergency center (0.14%) (P=0.0001). There was a higher rate of incident reports for patients under sedation (1.27%) as compared to non-sedated (0.12%) (P=0.0001).

CONCLUSION

Using incident report rates as a proxy for potential patient harm, the areas of our pediatric radiology service that are associated with the greatest potential for issues are interventional radiology, sedated patients, and inpatients. The areas associated with the least risk are ultrasound (US) and radiography. Safety improvement efforts should be focused on the high-risk areas.

The Psychiatry Morbidity and Mortality Incident Reporting Tool Increases Psychiatrist Participation in Reporting Adverse Events

OBJECTIVES

Although the reporting of adverse events (AEs) is widely thought to be a key first step to improving patient safety in hospital systems, underreporting remains a common problem, particularly among physicians. We aimed to increase the number of safety reports filed by psychiatrists in our hospital system.

METHODS

We piloted an online survey for psychiatry-specific AE reporting, the Psychiatry Morbidity and Mortality Incident Reporting Tool (PMIRT) for a 1-year period. An e-mail prompt containing a link to the survey was sent on a weekly basis to all psychiatry department clinical staff. The primary outcome was the total number of events reported by psychiatrists through PMIRT; secondary outcomes were the total number of AEs and the number of serious harm events filed by psychiatrists in our hospital's formal event reporting system before and after implementation of the new protocol.

RESULTS

Psychiatrists filed 65 reports in PMIRT during the study period. The average number of AEs reported by psychiatrists in the hospital's formal event reporting system significantly increased after the intervention (P = 0.0251), and the average number of serious harm events reported by psychiatrists increased nonsignificantly (P = 0.1394).

CONCLUSIONS

The combination of an increase in awareness of event reporting with a psychiatry-specific AE reporting tool resulted in a significant improvement in the number of reports by psychiatrists.

Identification of quality improvement areas in pediatric MRI from analysis of patient safety reports

BACKGROUND

Analysis of safety reports has been utilized to guide practice improvement efforts in adult magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Data specific to pediatric MRI could help target areas of improvement in this population.

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the incidence of safety reports in pediatric MRI and to determine associated risk factors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In a retrospective HIPAA-compliant, institutional review board-approved study, a single-institution Radiology Information System was queried to identify MRI studies performed in pediatric patients (0-18 years old) from 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2015. The safety report database was queried for events matching the same demographic and dates. Data on patient age, gender, location (inpatient, outpatient, emergency room [ER]), and the use of sedation/general anesthesia were recorded. Safety reports were grouped into categories based on the cause and their severity. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize continuous variables. Chi-square analyses were performed for univariate determination of statistical significance of variables associated with safety report rates. A multivariate logistic regression was used to control for possible confounding effects.

RESULTS

A total of 16,749 pediatric MRI studies and 88 safety reports were analyzed, yielding a rate of 0.52%. There were significant differences in the rate of safety reports between patients younger than 6 years (0.89%) and those older (0.41%) (P<0.01), sedated (0.8%) and awake children (0.45%) (P<0.01), and inpatients (1.1%) and outpatients (0.4%) (P<0.01). The use of sedation/general anesthesia is an independent risk factor for a safety report (P=0.02). The most common causes for safety reports were service coordination (34%), drug reactions (19%), and diagnostic test and ordering errors (11%).

CONCLUSION

The overall rate of safety reports in pediatric MRI is 0.52%. Interventions should focus on vulnerable populations, such as younger patients, those requiring sedation, and those in need of acute medical attention.

Rating and Classification of Incident Reporting in Radiology in a Large Academic Medical Center

The purpose of this article is to provide a rate of safety incident report of adverse events in a large academic radiology department and to share the various types that may occur. This is a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliant, institutional review board-approved study. Consent requirement was waived. All incident reports from April 2006-September 2012 were retrieved. Events were further classified as follows: diagnostic test orders, identity document or documentation or consent, safety or security or conduct, service coordination, surgery or procedure, line or tube, fall, medication or intravenous safety, employee general incident, environment or equipment, adverse drug reaction (ADR), skin or tissue, and diagnosis or treatment. Overall rates and subclassification rates were calculated. There were 10,224 incident reports and 4,324,208 radiology examinations (rate = 0.23%). The highest rates of the incident reports were due to diagnostic test orders (34.3%; 3509/10,224), followed by service coordination (12.2%; 1248/10,224) and ADR (10.3%; 1052/4,324,208). The rate of incident reporting was highest in inpatient (0.30%; 2949/970,622), followed by emergency radiology (0.22%; 1500/672,958) and outpatient (0.18%; 4957/2,680,628). Approximately 48.5% (4947/10,202) of incidents had no patient harm and did not affect the patient, followed by no patient harm, but did affect the patient (35.2%, 3589/10,202), temporary or minor patient harm (15.5%, 1584/10,202), permanent or major patient harm (0.6%, 62/10,202), and patient death (0.2%, 20/10,202). Within an academic radiology department, the rate of incident reports was only 0.23%, usually did not harm the patient, and occurred at higher rates in inpatients. The most common incident type was in the category of diagnostic test orders, followed by service coordination, and ADRs.

How often are Patients Harmed When They Visit the Computed Tomography Suite? A Multi-year Experience, in Incident Reporting, in a Large Academic Medical Center

OBJECTIVES

Our goal is to present our multi-year experience in incident reporting in CT in a large medical centre.

METHODS

This is an IRB-approved, HIPAA-compliant study. Informed consent was waived for this study. The electronic safety incident reporting system of our hospital was searched for the variables from April 2006 to September 2012. Incident classifications were diagnostic test orders, ID/documentation, safety/security/conduct, service coordination, surgery/procedure, line/tube, fall, medication/IV safety, employee general incident, environment/equipment, adverse drug reaction, skin/tissue and diagnosis/treatment.

RESULTS

A total of 1918 incident reports occurred in the study period and 843,902 CT examinations were performed. The rate of safety incident was 0.22 % (1918/843,902). The highest incident rates were due to adverse drug reactions (652/843,902 = 0.077 %) followed by medication/IV safety (573/843,902 = 0.068 %) and diagnostic test orders (206/843,902 = 0.024 %). Overall 45 % of incidents (869/1918) caused no harm and did not affect the patient, 33 % (637/1918) caused no harm but affected the patient, 22 % (420/1918) caused temporary or minor harm/damage and less than 1 % (10/1918) caused permanent or major harm/damage or death.

CONCLUSION

Our study shows a total safety incident report rate of 0.22 % in CT. The most common incidents are adverse drug reaction, medication/IV safety and diagnostic test orders.

KEY POINTS

• Total safety incident report rate in CT is 0.22 %. • Adverse drug reaction is the most common safety incident in CT. • Medication/IV safety is the second most common safety incident in CT.