BMJ quality & safety
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BMJ quality & safety · May 2012
Do some trusts deliver a consistently better experience for patients? An analysis of patient experience across acute care surveys in English NHS trusts.
Data were used from inpatient, outpatient and accident and emergency surveys in acute trusts in England to examine consistency in patient-reported experience across services, and factors associated with systematic variations in performance. ⋯ The results have significant implications for quality improvement in the NHS. The finding that some NHS providers consistently perform better than others suggests that there are system-wide determinants of patient experience and the potential for learning from innovators. However, there is room for improvement overall. Given the large samples of these surveys, the messages could also have relevance for healthcare systems elsewhere.
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BMJ quality & safety · May 2012
Surveillance of unplanned return to the operating theatre in neurosurgery combined with a mortality--morbidity conference: results of a pilot survey.
Unplanned return to the operating theatre (UROT) is a useful trigger tool that could be used to identify surgical adverse events (SAEs). The present study describes the feasibility of SAE surveillance in neurosurgical patients, based on UROT identification, completed with SAE analysis at a morbidity-mortality conference (MMC) meeting. ⋯ UROT related to SAE surveillance in neurosurgical patients was considered feasible. The association of surveillance and MMCs allowed staff to concentrate on the analysis of most frequent or most severe AEs and was a practical and useful tool to stimulate improvement. The impact on healthcare quality of SAE surveillance associated with MMC warrants further research.
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BMJ quality & safety · May 2012
Identifying, understanding and overcoming barriers to medication error reporting in hospitals: a focus group study.
The under-reporting of medication errors can compromise patient safety. A qualitative study was conducted to enhance the understanding of barriers to medication error reporting in healthcare organisations. ⋯ Study results may lead to a better understanding of the barriers to medication error reporting, why these barriers exist and what can be done to successfully overcome them. These results could be used by hospitals to encourage reporting of medication errors and ultimately make organisational changes leading to a reduction in the incidence of medication errors and an improvement in patient safety.
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BMJ quality & safety · Apr 2012
Medical errors reported by French general practitioners in training: results of a survey and individual interviews.
French interns in general practice are, like all medical students, exposed to medical errors during their training. ⋯ Medical errors remain a sensitive subject that is not broached enough in our university but interns need to talk about their experiences with their peers to improve risk management and prevent the recurrence of new errors.
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Attributes of the organisational culture of residency training programmes may impact patient safety. Training environments are complex, composed of clinical teams, residency programmes, and clinical units. We examined the relationship between residents' perceptions of their training environment and disclosure of or apology for their worst error. ⋯ Factors in the learning environments of residents are associated with responses to medical errors. Organisational safety culture can be measured, and used to evaluate environmental attributes of clinical training that are associated with disclosure of, and apology for, medical error.