Patient Safety and Common Sources of Harm Quiz

Patient Safety

• Patient safety is defined as the absence of preventable harm to a patient and reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with healthcare to an acceptable minimum.

International Patient Safety Goals (IPSG)

• Identify patients correctly
• Improve effective communication
• Improve the safety of high-alert medications
• Ensure safe surgery
• Reduce the risk of healthcare-associated infections
• Reduce the risk of patient harm resulting from falls

Sources of Patient Harm

Medication Errors

• 1 out of every 30 patients in health care experience medication-related harm
• More than a quarter of medication-related harm is severe or life-threatening
• Half of avoidable harm in healthcare is related to medications

Surgical Errors

• 10% of preventable patient harm in healthcare occurs in surgical settings
• Most surgical errors occur pre- and post-surgery

Healthcare-Associated Infections

• Healthcare-associated infections result in extended hospital stays, long-standing disability, increased antimicrobial resistance, financial burden, and avoidable deaths
• 23.6% of sepsis cases managed in hospitals are health care-associated
• 24.4% of affected patients lose their lives as a result of healthcare-associated sepsis

Diagnostic Errors

• Diagnostic errors occur in 5-20% of physician-patient encounters
• Harmful diagnostic errors occur in at least 0.7% of adult admissions
• Most people will experience a diagnostic error in their lifetime

Patient Falls

• Patient falls are the most frequent adverse events in hospitals
• The rate of patient falls ranges from 3 to 5 per 1000 bed-days

Venous Thromboembolism

• Venous thromboembolism is a highly burdensome and preventable cause of patient harm
• It contributes to one-third of complications attributed to hospitalization

Pressure Ulcers

• Pressure ulcers are injuries to the skin or soft tissue
• They develop from pressure to particular parts of the body over an extended period
• If not promptly managed, pressure ulcers can have fatal complications
• Pressure ulcers affect more than 1 in 10 adult patients admitted to hospitals

Unsafe Transfusion Practices

• Unnecessary transfusions and unsafe transfusion practices expose patients to the risk of serious adverse transfusion reactions and transfusion-transmissible infections

Patient Misidentification

• Failure to correctly identify patients can be a root cause of many problems and has serious effects on healthcare provision

Unsafe Injection Practices

• Unsafe injection practices place patients and healthcare workers at risk of infectious and non-infectious adverse events