[CIRRNET® - learning from errors, a success story]

CIRRNET® is the network of local error-reporting systems of the Swiss Patient Safety Foundation. The network has been running since 2006 together with the Swiss Society for Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation (SGAR), and network participants currently include 39 healthcare institutions from all four different language regions of Switzerland. Further institutions can join at any time. Local error reports in CIRRNET® are bundled at a supraregional level, categorised in accordance with the WHO classification, and analysed by medical experts. The CIRRNET® database offers a solid pool of data with error reports from a wide range of medical specialist's areas and provides the basis for identifying relevant problem areas in patient safety. These problem areas are then processed in cooperation with specialists with extremely varied areas of expertise, and recommendations for avoiding these errors are developed by changing care processes (Quick-Alerts®). Having been approved by medical associations and professional medical societies, Quick-Alerts® are widely supported and well accepted in professional circles. The CIRRNET® database also enables any affiliated CIRRNET® participant to access all error reports in the 'closed user area' of the CIRRNET® homepage and to use these error reports for in-house training. A healthcare institution does not have to make every mistake itself - it can learn from the errors of others, compare notes with other healthcare institutions, and use existing knowledge to advance its own patient safety.