O'Hara, JK orcid.org/0000-0001-5551-9975, Reynolds, C, Moore, S et al. (6 more authors) (2018) What can patients tell us about the quality and safety of hospital care? Findings from a UK multicentre survey study. BMJ Quality and Safety, 27 (9). pp. 673-682. ISSN 2044-5415
Abstract
Background: Patient safety measurement remains a global challenge. Patients are an important but neglected source of learning; however, little is known about what patients can add to our understanding of safety. We sought to understand the incidence and nature of patient-reported safety concerns in hospital.
Methods: Feedback about the experience of safety within hospital was gathered from 2471 inpatients as part of a multicentre, waitlist cluster randomised controlled trial of an intervention, undertaken within 33 wards across three English NHS Trusts, between May 2013 and September 2014. Patient volunteers, supported by researchers, developed a classification framework of patient-reported safety concerns from a random sample of 231 reports. All reports were then classified using the patient-developed categories. Following this, all patient-reported safety concerns underwent a two-stage clinical review process for identification of patient safety incidents.
Results: Of the 2471 inpatients recruited, 579 provided 1155 patient-reported incident reports. 14 categories were developed for classification of reports, with communication the most frequently occurring (22%), followed by staffing issues (13%) and problems with the care environment (12%). 406 of the total 1155 patient incident reports (35%) were classified by clinicians as a patient safety incident according to the standard definition. 1 in 10 patients (264 patients) identified a patient safety incident, with medication errors the most frequently reported incident.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that patients can provide insight about safety that complements existing patient safety measurement, with a frequency of reported patient safety incidents that is similar to those obtained via case note review. However, patients provide a unique perspective about hospital safety which differs from and adds to current definitions of patient safety incidents.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Article author(s) or their employer(s) 2018. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | adverse events, epidemiology and detection; human factors; medical error, measurement/epidemiology; patient safety; quality measurement |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Medicine (Leeds) > Leeds Institute of Medical Education The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 15 May 2018 16:35 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:21 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BMJ Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1136/bmjqs-2017-006974 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:130833 |