Patient-assisted incident reporting: including the patient in patient safety

Patient Safety Reporting Systems are a commonly used method for capturing information about adverse events and near misses in the acute care setting. These event reports are almost exclusively submitted by the frontline care provider, and the patient perspective of the event is rarely captured. The authors present a case which illustrates the use of eliciting the patient's perspective to provide a complementary perspective to the provider's description of the event. The methodology for obtaining and using this information to enhance understanding of the event and to inform prevention strategies is described.