OBJECTIVE To determine how often serious or life-threatening medication administration errors with the potential to cause harm (potential adverse drug events) result in actual harm (adverse drug events (ADEs)) in the hospital setting. DESIGN Retrospective chart review of clinical events following observed medication administration errors. BACKGROUND Medication errors are common at the medic...

BACKGROUND Patient safety is vital in patient care. There is a lack of studies on medical errors in primary care settings. The aim of the study is to determine the extent of diagnostic inaccuracies and management errors in public funded primary care clinics. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study conducted in twelve public funded primary care clinics in Malaysia. A total of 1753 medical rec...

OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence of adverse drug events (ADEs) and assess their severity and preventability. DESIGN A prospective cohort study. SETTING A 900-bed tertiary academic hospital. PARTICIPANTS A total of 977 patients admitted to two medical, one surgical and two intensive care units over four months. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcomes were the incidence of ADEs, pr...

www.aana.com/aanajournalonline Children who present for surgery with undiagnosed sleep-disordered breathing are particularly vulnerable to perioperative respiratory adverse events (PRAEs). Preoperative screening can identify children at increased risk who would benefit from evidence-based perioperative management, reducing serious preventable harm or death. The purpose of this quality improveme...

To cite: Vincent C, Amalberti R. BMJ Qual Saf Published Online First: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2015004403 Safety in healthcare is a constantly moving target. As standards improve and concern for safety grows, we come to regard an increasing number of events as patient safety issues. In this respect, healthcare differs from almost all other safety-critical industries. Wh...

New patient safety standards from JCAHO that require hospitals to disclose to patients all unexpected outcomes of care took effect 1 July 2001. In an early 2002 survey of risk managers at a nationally representative sample of hospitals, the vast majority reported that their hospital's practice was to disclose harm at least some of the time, although only one-third of hospitals actually had boar...

OBJECTIVES The purposes of this study were to develop a pediatric-focused tool for adverse drug event detection and describe the incidence and characteristics of adverse drug events in children's hospitals identified by this tool. METHODS A pediatric-specific trigger tool for adverse drug event detection was developed and tested. Eighty patients from each site were randomly selected for retro...

BACKGROUND Older patients are at high risk for experiencing Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) during hospitalization. To be able to reduce ADEs in these vulnerable patients, hospitals first need to measure the occurrence of ADEs, especially those that are preventable. However, data on preventable ADEs (pADEs) occurring during hospitalization in older patients are scarce, and no 'gold standard' for the...

The drinking habits, demographic characteristics and knowledge about the effects of drinking during pregnancy of 380 pregnant women in Belfast were investigated. Forty-five per cent of the women were non-drinkers, 39% were occasional drinkers and 16% were regular drinkers. The majority of women knew that alcohol could harm their babies but were unsure of the specific effects. Regular drinkers w...