Patients surveys

ADEs and medication errors can be extracted from practice data, incidents reports from health professionals, and patient surveys. Practice data include charts, laboratory, prescription data, and administrative databases, and can be reviewed manually or screened by computer systems to identify signals. A method of ADE and medication error detection and classification has been presented that is feasible and has good reliability (Marimoto et al. 2004). It can be used in various clinical settings to measure and improve medication safety. 

First, FDA has been conducting continuing research into how much and what kind of information patienfs gef about their prescriptions from pharmacies and physicians offices. Dafa from fhe lasf four patient surveys that have been conducted since 1992 are on FDA s website at www.fda.gov/cder/ddmac/research.htm. FDA has also completed research on how men and women perceive benefits and risks in patient labeling as a fxmc-tion of how the information is commxmicated. FDA hopes to use these data to better communicate prescription medication information and is preparing papers for publication based on e data from this study. 

MG Waters, JF Suleskey, LJ Finkelstein, ME Van Overbeke, VJ Zizza, M Stommel. Interstitial cystitis a retrospective analysis of treatment with pentosan polysulfate and follow-up patient survey. J Am Osteo Assoc 100 S13-S18, 2000. 

Lewis, S.M. Kroner, B.A. Patient survey of a pharmacist-managed anticoagulation clinic. Managed Care Interface 1997, 70 (11), 66-70. 

Carey, R.G. Seibert, J.H. A patient survey system to measure quality improvement Questionnaire reliability and validity. Med. Care 1993, 31 (9), 834-845. 

University Hospital Zurich has been conducting patient surveys for more than 10 years now. In addition, its patient advice service deals directly with complaints and praise from patients and, where appropriate, makes contact with the patients concerned. The data acquired via the surveys and also via this direct patient feedback are made available to the various specialist units. This feedback makes clinical staff more aware of patients problems and expectations and also of what procedures and stractures are proving to be effective. It can also be used to plug and eliminate deficits in patient care as perceived by patients. 

Maria Helena Kiss is a project leader in the department of qirality management and patient safety at the University Hospital in Zurich. Her background is in psychology and systemic psychotherapy. Her work focuses on patient safety projects, patient surveys and the psychological care of patients with bum injuries and their relatives. 

Prevalence is the total number of active (existing and new) cases of the disease in a defined population, either during a specified period (period prevalence) or at a specified point in time (point prevalence). The prevalence nosocomial infection rate is calculated simply by dividing the number of active nosocomial infections in patients surveyed by the number of patients surveyed. Because nosocomial pneumonias occur relatively infrequently, the period chosen for surveillance must be large enough for an adequate estimation of a hospital s prevalence rate and usually varies depending on the number of occupied beds in a hospital. In addition, these rates require risk adjustment, which is currently not available for interhospital comparison of prevalence rates. 

Responding to patient survey data, the administration invests heavily in a new waiting room and other features designed to create a more spa-like atmosphere it cuts... 

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