Patient Safety Program

The existence of a proper patient safety program is essential to guide the effective planning and implementation of safety-related projects. An eight-step patient safety program is presented below [7,25]  

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Bagian JP, Lee C, Gosbee J, et al. 2001. Developing and deploying a patient safety program in a large health care delivery system You can t fix what you don t know about. Joint Comm J Qual Improv 27 522. 

Jones, K.J., Skinner, A., Xu, L., Sun, J. and Mueller, K. 2008. The AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture A Tool to Plan and Evaluate Patient Safety Programs. In Heimksen, K., Battles, J.B., Keyes, M.A. and Grady, M. (eds), Advances in Patient Safety New Directions and Alternative Approaches (Vol. 2 Culture and Redesign). Rockville (MD) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US), 1-22. 

Frush, K. S., Alton, M., Frush, D. P., Development and Implementation of Hospital-Based Patient Safety Program, Pediatric Radiology, Vol. 36, 2006, pp. 291-298. 

Chisholm, L. A., Telder, R., Dolan, A. M., A Patient Safety Program for Small Hospitals, Biomedical Sciences Instrumentation, Vol. 10,1974, pp. 125-128. 

Premier, Inc. Basic Patient Safety Program Tool Mtfor Getting Started. [http //www. 

The patient safety program must include the development of a continuous assessment process to prevent error occurrence. Event information from data and incident occurrence reports should be reviewed by the multidisciplinary team to prioritize organizational efforts. Sources of data could include incident reports, medication errors, adverse drug reactions, transfusion reactions, sentinel events, and other adverse events. The patient safety program encompasses the patient population, visitors, volunteers, physicians, and staff and addresses improvement issues in every department. Senior leadership must be responsible for ensuring full implementation of the program, with an emphasis on the following functions ... 

The multidisciplinary team should represent leadership from throughout the organization and provide oversight for the patient safety program. All patient care and nonpatient care departments must report safety events and potential occurrences. The report will contain aggregated information... 

An effective patient safety program cannot exist withont optimal reporting of medical or healthcare errors and occnrrences. The organization should adopt a no punitive approach in its management of errors and occurrences. Personnel must be able to report suspected or identified medical or healthcare errors without the fear of reprisal in relationship to their anployment. Organizations must support the concept that errors occur due to a breakdown in systems and processes. Improvement will be achieved by focusing on systems and processes rather than disciplining those involved in adverse events. 

The patient safety program should include an annual survey of patients, their families, and staff about their perceptions of risks to patients. The survey should solicit opinions and suggestions for improvement. It is important to make sure that patients and, when appropriate, their families are informed about the outcomes of care brief patients about unanticipated outcomes or when the outcomes differ significantly from the anticipated outcomes. When a healthcare error leads to injury, the patient and family should receive a truthful and compassionate explanation about the error, including remedies available to the patient. They should be informed that the factors involved in the injury are being investigated so steps can be taken to reduce the likelihood of similar injury to other patients. Staff should educate patients and their families about their role in helping to facilitate the safe delivery of care. 

Coordinating environmental safety issues with leadership of the patient safety program... 

Cahfomia Patient Safety Program Manual (PDF Version), Published By California Department of Health Services, accessed online January 2008. http //www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Documents /Patients afetyProgramManuall2-12-2005.pdf. 

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