Organisational targets of patient safety improvement programs in primary care; an international web-based survey

Organisational problems contribute to many errors in healthcare delivery. Our objective was to identify the most important organisational items in primary care which could be targeted by programs to improve patient safety.

A web-based survey was undertaken in an international panel of 65 experts on patient safety from 20 countries. They were asked to rate 52 patient safety items on a five-point Likert scale which regards importance of each item for use for educational interventions to improve patient safety.

The following 7 organizational items were regarded 'extremely important' by more than 50% of the experts: the use of sterile equipment with small surgical procedures (63%), the availability of adequate emergency drugs in stock (60%), regular cleaning of facilities (59%), the use of sterile surgical gloves when recommended (57%), the availability of at least one adequately trained staff member to deal with collapse and need for resuscitation (56%), adequate information handover when a patient is discharged from the hospital (56%) and periodically training of GPs in basic life support and other medical emergencies (53%).

Seven organisational items were consistently prioritized; other items may be relevant in specific countries only. The logical next step is to develop and evaluate interventions targeted at these items.