Patient safety in Dutch primary care: a study protocol

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Safety Research
• Primary Care Medicine

Background:

• Patient safety is critical, yet most research focuses on hospitals, neglecting primary care settings where most healthcare is delivered.
• Limited data exists on patient safety issues within Dutch primary care practices.
• This study addresses the knowledge gap regarding patient safety in various Dutch primary care settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate patient safety issues in Dutch primary care.
• To determine the frequency, type, impact, and causes of patient safety incidents.
• To assess patient safety management within primary care practices.

Main Methods:

• A mixed-methods approach combining retrospective patient record review and a prospective incident reporting system.
• 1,000 patient records were analyzed per practice type for incidents.
• Healthcare professionals participated in a two-week incident reporting study, followed by surveys on patient safety management.

Main Results:

• The frequency of patient safety incidents was difficult to estimate accurately.
• Incident analysis included type, causes (Eindhoven Classification Model), and harm severity (International Taxonomy of Medical Errors in Primary Care).
• Challenges in estimation were linked to patient record quality and professional consensus on incident identification.

Conclusions:

• Accurate estimation of patient safety incident frequency in primary care is complex.
• Reliable data collection depends on the quality of patient records and consistent professional definitions of incidents.
• Improving patient safety management requires addressing these data and consensus challenges.