Kathleen Mears Memorial Lecture: An update on patient safety issues in the epilepsy monitoring unit

Patients with epilepsy are at increased risk for injury by the very nature of their disorder. In everyday activities they are at a higher risk than people without epilepsy. When patients are admitted to epilepsy monitoring units or to EEG facilities, the purpose is to gather information regarding their seizures and their seizure disorder and often times seizure provocation techniques are utilized to encourage seizures putting the patients at increased risk for injury. To address patient safety, the unit first must develop a "safe culture." A review of general information regarding the culture of safety and the risk that patients with epilepsy face when being monitored will be presented followed by a discussion of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) recommendations for patient management during monitoring. Currently AES is developing an interactive educational program to address patient safety issues and examples of this program will be shown.