Reducing error and improving patient safety
- Autores: Mickey Tivers
- Localización: Veterinary Record, ISSN-e 2042-7670, Vol. 177, Nº. 17, 2015, págs. 436-437
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
AS veterinary surgeons, the safety of our patients has always been a priority. However, the formal concept of patient safety has only filtered down from our medical colleagues relatively recently. This concept has developed rapidly in the medical profession over the past 25 years. While error and complications have always been associated with healthcare, specific interest in this area was, perhaps understandably, limited. In 1991 the Harvard medical practice study highlighted the problem of error and adverse events in human healthcare, showing that 3.7 per cent of hospitalised patients suffered harm and that 13.6 per cent of these incidents resulted in death (Brennan and others 1991, Leape and others 1991). Since then there has been increasing focus in the medical profession on reducing complications and improving patient safety. Patient safety has been defined as ‘the reduction of risk or unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum’ (Runciman and others 2009), and this definition has resulted in research on ways to improve patient safety in a variety of disciplines. One notable development is the World Health Organization (WHO) surgical safety checklist, designed to reduce surgical complications (Haynes and others 2009). The use of the checklist has resulted in a significant decrease in complications and mortality associated with surgery (Bergs and others 2014).
