[Patient safety in hospitals--a health services research issue]

Health services research as a multidisciplinary approach to transfer scientific results and clinical experience to health care includes quality research as one of its main topics. Quality research describes the total of conditions, which hinder or promote quality of care as one important output factor of health care. At present, patient safety research is one of the central issues of quality research, as preventable adverse events represent the most substantial consequences of problems in quality. Research issues start with epidemiological data, which are lacking in Germany, and the transfer of international data to the German health care system. Reporting instruments including critical incident reporting systems have to be validated, patient safety indicators should be developed, under consideration of the use of administrative data. Patient safety research addresses the effect of public disclosure of adverse events, errors and injury in respect to improvement of care and should analyse as well as elaborate prevention strategies for the most important adverse events and errors. Team factors such as communication and supervision and determinants of safety culture are issues, which illustrate the significant role of management theory and organisational research.