engleski

PATIENT SAFETY MEASURES AND SAFETY CULTURE INDICATORS IN HEALTH CARE ARENA

Patient safety is the primary measure of the quality of health care. As such, it has become one of the major interests of the healthcare systems around the world. Safety is also one of the basic human needs and a basic psychological need. Patient safety includes the efforts and activities undertaken to ensure that all procedures and the environment in which health care is provided produce the desired patient outcome. It is estimated that 8 to 12% of patients admitted to hospital in the EU suffer from adverse events associated with the provision of health care, which may result in permanent injury, prolonged stay in healthcare facilities, or even death. Patient outcomes include changes in the health conditions of a patient that could be linked to previously provided health care. Possible outcomes include full recovery, partial recovery, death or disability. Patient outcomes also include patient satisfaction or dissatisfaction not only with the outcome of the illness, but also with comfort, cleanliness, attitude of the staff towards them, respect of their rights, level of information, education, quality of life after the discharge, etc. The most common adverse safety incidents are related to surgical procedures (27%), medication errors (18.3%) and health care-associated infections (12.2%). It is vital to create a safety culture which includes the following: detection of high-risk situations ; a no-blame culture where individuals can report their errors and near misses openly without fear of punishment ; an interdisciplinary approach to seeking solutions to the patient safety issues ; establishment of a patient safety commission.

patient safety, healthcare quality, adverse events

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