Background: Nearly 10% of patients experience a harmful patient safety incident in the hospital setting. Current evidence focuses on incident reporting, whereas little is known about how incidents are managed within organizations. Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore processes, tools, and resources for incident management in Canadian health care organizations. Methods: Qualitative focus groups were conducted with key stakeholders, representing clinicians, managers, executives, governors, patients, and families (n = 45). Results: Qualitative data were thematically analyzed and presented as 3 themes: (1) variations in incident reporting and management; (2) simplification of the incident management process; and (3) need for leadership to support just culture and redefine harm. Conclusion: The study findings support and inform efforts to create a patient safety culture in Canadian and international health care organizations. There is a need to develop a standardized, accessible incident reporting and management system for use across health care sectors to promote continuous learning and improvement about patient safety.
Objectives The aims of the study were to assess whether preassigning a team leader influences resuscitation timing using simulation and to examine relationship between response timeliness and designated leader's profession, whether physician or nurse. Methods This is a prospective study of intervention (leader assigned) and control (no assigned leader) teams of residents and nurses participating in a simulated scenario. The primary outcome was time to bag-valve-mask (BVM) ventilation. A secondary outcome measure compared difference in time to BVM between physician- and nurse-led teams. Results We assessed 25 teams, leader assigned (n = 14) or control (n = 11), composed of 92 clinicians. Leaders emerged in most of the controls (10 of 11). The median time to BVM in the leader-assigned group was 41.5 seconds (interquartile range, 34–49 seconds) compared with 53 seconds (interquartile range, 27–85 seconds) for controls (P = 0.13). In the leader-assigned group, 85% (12 of 14) of teams initiated BVM in less than 1 minute compared with only 54% teams (6 of 11) in controls (P = 0.18). Among the leader-assigned teams, we randomly assigned residents to lead 8 teams and nurses to lead 6 teams. All the nurse-led teams (6 of 6) initiated BVM in less than 1 minute compared with fewer physician-led teams (6 of 8) and only approximately half of controls (6 of 11, P = 0.19). Conclusions The leader-assigned teams and controls did not differ in resuscitation timeliness. Among leader-assigned teams, the differences in time to BVM between physician- and nurse-led teams were not statistically significant. However, all 6 nurse-led teams demonstrated timely resuscitation, suggesting a direction for future research on the feasibility of bedside nurses taking the lead during resuscitation, pending code team arrival.
Summary Pressure to reduce health care costs, limited hospital bed availability as well as improvements in surgical techniques and perioperative care motivated many health care centres to implement short-stay protocols for patients undergoing hip or knee arthroplasty. To improve patient outcomes and maintain care safety, we strongly believe the best way to implement a successful outpatient program would be to embrace the principles of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS), and to improve patient recovery to a level such that the patient could leave the hospital sooner. Enhanced Recovery Canada and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute support the development of ERAS pathways for orthopedic procedures. The goal is to provide patients, health care providers and leaders with helpful tools and resources to effectively implement and sustain ERAS protocols. Reducing the rate of adverse events while reducing the length of hospital stays to less than 24 hours is a winning situation for everyone.
Patient safety is a complex systems issue. In this study, we used a scoping review of peer-reviewed literature and a case study of provincial and territorial legislation in Canada to explore the influence of mandatory reporting legislation on patient safety outcomes in hospital settings. We drew from a conceptual model that examines the components of mandatory reporting legislation that must be in place as a part of a systems governance approach to patient safety and used this model to frame our results. Our results suggest that mandatory reporting legislation across Canada is generally designed to gather information about - rather than respond to and prevent - patient safety incidents. Overall, we found limited evidence of impact of mandatory reporting legislation on patient safety outcomes. Although legislation is one lever among many to improve patient safety outcomes, there are nonetheless several considerations for patient safety legislation to assist in broader system improvement efforts in Canada and elsewhere. Legislative frameworks may be enhanced by strengthening learning systems, accountability mechanisms and patient safety culture.
This practice note describes the unique features of, and lessons learned from, UEval, an innovative one-week “evaluation institute” at the Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta. This initiative responds to an identified community and university need to provide contextual and socially relevant evaluation-focused educational opportunities to learners across disciplines and sectors. UEval is guided by principles of participatory and experiential learning and brings together undergraduates, graduates, and community professionals as co-learners for a mutually beneficial and sustainable educational experience. During the week, learners explore and apply evaluation theory through project-based curricula and develop evaluative responses to community-informed issues.
