Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.

BACKGROUND: Over the past five years, in most hospitals in England and Wales, incident reporting has become well established but it remains unclear how well reports match clinical adverse events. International epidemiological studies of adverse events are based on retrospective, multi-hospital case...

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Main Authors: Olsen, S, Neale, G, Schwab, K, Psaila, B, Patel, T, Chapman, E, Vincent, C
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2007
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author Olsen, S
Neale, G
Schwab, K
Psaila, B
Patel, T
Chapman, E
Vincent, C
author_facet Olsen, S
Neale, G
Schwab, K
Psaila, B
Patel, T
Chapman, E
Vincent, C
author_sort Olsen, S
collection OXFORD
description BACKGROUND: Over the past five years, in most hospitals in England and Wales, incident reporting has become well established but it remains unclear how well reports match clinical adverse events. International epidemiological studies of adverse events are based on retrospective, multi-hospital case record review. In this paper the authors describe the use of incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review for the recognition of clinical risks associated with hospital inpatient care. METHODOLOGY: Data on adverse events were collected prospectively on 288 patients discharged from adult acute medical and surgical units in an NHS district general hospital using incident reports, active surveillance of prescription charts by pharmacists and record review at time of discharge. RESULTS: Record review detected 26 adverse events (AEs) and 40 potential adverse events (PAEs) occurring during the index admission. In contrast, in the same patient group, incident reporting detected 11 PAEs and no AEs. Pharmacy surveillance found 10 medication errors all of which were PAEs. There was little overlap in the nature of events detected by the three methods. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that incident reporting does not provide an adequate assessment of clinical adverse events and that this method needs to be supplemented with other more systematic forms of data collection. Structured record review, carried out by clinicians, provides an important component of an integrated approach to identifying risk in the context of developing a safety and quality improvement programme.
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spelling oxford-uuid:bc8dcbb7-a3f2-4bdc-a9bb-57fc4bd21e842022-03-27T05:25:11ZHospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:bc8dcbb7-a3f2-4bdc-a9bb-57fc4bd21e84EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2007Olsen, SNeale, GSchwab, KPsaila, BPatel, TChapman, EVincent, CBACKGROUND: Over the past five years, in most hospitals in England and Wales, incident reporting has become well established but it remains unclear how well reports match clinical adverse events. International epidemiological studies of adverse events are based on retrospective, multi-hospital case record review. In this paper the authors describe the use of incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review for the recognition of clinical risks associated with hospital inpatient care. METHODOLOGY: Data on adverse events were collected prospectively on 288 patients discharged from adult acute medical and surgical units in an NHS district general hospital using incident reports, active surveillance of prescription charts by pharmacists and record review at time of discharge. RESULTS: Record review detected 26 adverse events (AEs) and 40 potential adverse events (PAEs) occurring during the index admission. In contrast, in the same patient group, incident reporting detected 11 PAEs and no AEs. Pharmacy surveillance found 10 medication errors all of which were PAEs. There was little overlap in the nature of events detected by the three methods. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that incident reporting does not provide an adequate assessment of clinical adverse events and that this method needs to be supplemented with other more systematic forms of data collection. Structured record review, carried out by clinicians, provides an important component of an integrated approach to identifying risk in the context of developing a safety and quality improvement programme.
spellingShingle Olsen, S
Neale, G
Schwab, K
Psaila, B
Patel, T
Chapman, E
Vincent, C
Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.
title Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.
title_full Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.
title_fullStr Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.
title_full_unstemmed Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.
title_short Hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events: incident reporting, pharmacist surveillance and local real-time record review may all have a place.
title_sort hospital staff should use more than one method to detect adverse events and potential adverse events incident reporting pharmacist surveillance and local real time record review may all have a place
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