Sécurité des patients et culture de sécurité: une revue de la littérature

Assessing patient safety culture in 15 intensive care units: a mixed-methods study

BACKGROUND

Within hospitals, intensive care units (ICUs) are particularly high-risk areas for medical errors and adverse events that could occur due to the complexity of care and the patients' fragile medical conditions. Assessing patient safety culture (PSC) is essential to have a broad view on patient safety issues, to orientate future improvement actions and optimize quality of care and patient safety outcomes. This study aimed at assessing PSC in 15 Tunisian ICUs using mixed methods approach.

METHODS

A cross-sectional mixed methods approach using a sequential explanatory design was conducted from December 2019 to January 2020. The first quantitative stage was conducted in 15 ICUs belonging to the two university hospitals in the region of Sousse (Tunisia). All the 344 healthcare professionals (clinical staff) working for more than 1 month in these ICUs were contacted in order to take part in the study. In the second qualitative stage 12 participants were interviewed based on purposive sampling.

RESULTS

All of the PSC dimensions had a score of less than 50%. The developed dimension was 'teamwork within units' (48.8%). The less developed dimensions were 'frequency of event reporting' (20.8%), 'communication openness' (22.2%) and 'non-punitive response to error' (19.7%). Interviews' thematic analysis revealed four main themes including "Hospital management/system failure", "Teamwork and communication", "Error management" and "Working conditions".

CONCLUSION

This research revealed that PSC is still in need of improvement and provided a clearer picture of the patient safety issues that require specific attention. Improving PSC through the use of quality management and error reporting systems may help to improve patient safety outcomes.

Assessing patient safety culture in 18 Tunisian adult intensive care units and determination of its associated factors: A multi-center study

PURPOSE

This study aimed to assess patient safety culture (PSC) in intensive care units (ICUs) and to determine the factors affecting it.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study, conducted from October to November 2017 among professionals practicing in the ICUs of the Tunisian center. After obtaining institutional ethics committee's approval and administrative authorizations, an anonymous paper-based questionnaire was distributed to the participants after obtaining their consent to take part in the study. The measuring instrument used is the French validated version of the "Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture" questionnaire.

RESULTS

A total of 402 professionals, from 18 ICUs and 10 hospitals, participated in the study with a participation rate of 82.37%. All dimensions were to be improved. The most developed dimension was teamwork within the unit (47.87%) and the least developed dimension was the non-punitive response to error (18.6%). Seven dimensions were significantly more developed in private institutions than in public ones. Results also show that when workload is reduced, the PSC was significantly increased.

CONCLUSION

This study has shown that the PSC in ICUs needs improvement and provided a baseline results to get a clearer vision of the aspects of security that require special attention.

De la sécurité des patients à la résilience des systèmes de soins: un état de l’art

Résumé La sécurité des patients est devenue une priorité des politiques de santé publique. En 30 ans, les systèmes de santé se sont approprié les outils de gestion des risques conçus pour les industries. L’objectif de cette revue de littérature est de décrire les modèles et les démarches de sécurité actuellement déployés dans les systèmes de santé et d’explorer les nouvelles perspectives. La recherche bibliographique a été réalisée à partir de trois bases de données, en français et en anglais. L’analyse thématique du matériel retenu (48 références) a guidé la construction de l’article et l’identification d’une typologie de démarches de prévention. Après une présentation des démarches « classiques », nous exposons les limites de ces démarches dans le contexte spécifique des soins. Puis nous présenterons les perspectives scientifiques actuellement envisagées pour construire de nouvelles approches de prévention en santé. Ces perspectives interrogent, en conclusion, la nécessité d’un changement de paradigme, comme le propose le courant de l’« ingénierie de la résilience ».

Evidence from facility level inputs to improve quality of care for maternal and newborn health: interventions and findings

Most of the maternal and newborn deaths occur at birth or within 24 hours of birth. Therefore, essential lifesaving interventions need to be delivered at basic or comprehensive emergency obstetric care facilities. Facilities provide complex interventions including advice on referrals, post discharge care, long-term management of chronic conditions along with staff training, managerial and administrative support to other facilities. This paper reviews the effectiveness of facility level inputs for improving maternal and newborn health outcomes. We considered all available systematic reviews published before May 2013 on the pre-defined facility level interventions and included 32 systematic reviews. Findings suggest that additional social support during pregnancy and labour significantly decreased the risk of antenatal hospital admission, intrapartum analgesia, dissatisfaction, labour duration, cesarean delivery and instrumental vaginal birth. However, it did not have any impact on pregnancy outcomes. Continued midwifery care from early pregnancy to postpartum period was associated with reduced medical procedures during labour and shorter length of stay. Facility based stress training and management interventions to maintain well performing and motivated workforce, significantly reduced job stress and improved job satisfaction while the interventions tailored to address identified barriers to change improved the desired practice. We found limited and inconclusive evidence for the impacts of physical environment, exit interviews and organizational culture modifications. At the facility level, specialized midwifery teams and social support during pregnancy and labour have demonstrated conclusive benefits in improving maternal newborn health outcomes. However, the generalizability of these findings is limited to high income countries. Future programs in resource limited settings should utilize these findings to implement relevant interventions tailored to their needs.

[Patient safety as a dimension of the quality of health care--a look at the literature]

The modern and competitive reality of health care delivery systems is often hampered by increasing demands and often insufficient resources. The concern about patient safety--an important dimension of healthcare quality--is nowadays an issue of growing significance among researchers around the world. Adverse events occur in any places where health care delivery services are delivered and in most situations these events are subject to preventive actions. The scope of this paper is to present, by means of a literature review, the concept of patient safety in the twenty-first century, focusing on its significance as a worldwide public health problem; to discuss the challenges related to the gaps and perspectives involving research into the issue and the way it is addressed in the Brazilian reality. It is revealed that research into patient safety still lacks the benefits of having well established approaches, and also that multiple barriers and challenges must be overcome in the concepts of study outlines and the use of research techniques.