[Comparison of the "Trigger" tool with the minimum basic data set for detecting adverse events in general surgery]

[Adverse events and essential actions for patient safety]

INTRODUCTION

The adverse events (AE) in hospitalized patients occur with increasing frequency due to the increase in complexity of medical care, which implies a greater risk of committing a human error inherent to the care, constituting a serious threat to the safety of the patient.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Cross-sectional study, including patients older than 16years, with hospital stay longer than 24h and discharge from the general surgery service, patients treated in emergency observation units or other hospital services were not considered. AE were identified, classified by cause according to the essential actions for patient safety (EAPS), and compliance with the EAPS was verified.

RESULTS

352 clinical records were reviewed, 61 (17%) were positive on screening. Of the positives, 66% resulted in AE (47 cases). The prevalence of AE was 13%. The AE were: 40% related to procedures; 39% with infections; 17% with medication; 4% with patient identification. The EAPS with the best rating was EAPS5 and the lowest rating was EAPS4. The night shifts with the greatest opportunity area, only with 40% and 44% correct procedures.

CONCLUSIONS

The study shows that the two methodologies used, one to identify AE and the other to establish its causes and classification according to the EAPS, demonstrated usefulness and synergy for patient safety, when detecting AE, as well as determining their causes and evaluate compliance with the EAPS.

[Detection of adverse events in thyroid and parathyroid surgery using trigger tool and Minimum Basic Data Set (MBDS)]

OBJECTIVES

To compare the ability of the trigger tool) and the Minimum Basic Data Set (MBDS) in detecting adverse events (AE) in hospitalized surgical patients with thyroid and parathyroid disease.

METHODS

A descriptive, cross-sectional observational study, retrospective and cross-sectional study was conducted from May 2014 to April 2015 analysing retrospectively data on of patients submitted to thyroidectomy and parathyroidectomy in order to detect AE through the identification of triggers (an event often associated to an AE) and the MBDS. triggers and AE were located by systematic review of clinical documentation. The MBDS was got from the data base. Once an AE was detected, it was characterized.

RESULTS

203 AE were identified in 251 patients, being the 90.04% detected by trigger tool and 10.34% by MBDS. 126 patients had at least one AE (50.2%). Without the cases in which uncontrolled pain was the only AE, the percentage of patients that suffering AE was 38.65%. 187 AE were considered preventable and 16 AE were considered unpreventable. The trigger tool and the MBDS demonstrated a sensitivity of 91.27 and 13.49%, a specificity of 4.8 and 100%, a positive predictive value of 49,15 and 100%, and a negative predictive value of 35.29 and 53.42%, respectively. The triggers with more predictive power in AE detection were «antiemetic administration» and «calcium administration».

CONCLUSIONS

Trigger tool shows higher sensitivity for detecting AE than the MBDS. All the detected AE were considered low severity and most of them were preventable.

Prevalence and avoidability of surgical adverse events in a teaching hospital in Brazil

OBJECTIVE

to estimate the prevalence and avoidability of surgical adverse events in a teaching hospital and to classify the events according to the type of incident and degree of damage.

METHOD

cross-sectional retrospective study carried out in two phases. In phase I, nurses performed a retrospective review on a simple randomized sample of 192 records of adult patients using the Canadian Adverse Events Study form for case tracking. Phase II aimed at confirming the adverse event by an expert committee composed of physicians and nurses. Data were analyzed by univariate descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

the prevalence of surgical adverse events was 21.8%. In 52.4% of the cases, detection occurred on outpatient return. Of the 60 cases analyzed, 90% (n = 54) were preventable and more than two thirds resulted in mild to moderate damage. Surgical technical failures contributed in approximately 40% of the cases. There was a prevalence of the infection category associated with health care (50%, n = 30). Adverse events were mostly related to surgical site infection (30%, n = 18), suture dehiscence (16.7%, n = 10) and hematoma/seroma (15%, n = 9).

CONCLUSION

the prevalence and avoidability of surgical adverse events are challenges faced by hospital management.