New Tools for Measuring and Improving Patient Safety in Canadian Hospitals

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality and Safety
• Health Services Research
• Clinical Informatics

Background:

• Patient safety is a critical concern in acute care settings.
• Monitoring and reducing healthcare-associated harm are ongoing priorities for health organizations.
• Existing measures may not fully capture the breadth of patient harm experienced in hospitals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel patient safety measure developed through collaboration.
• To present findings on the incidence of patient harm in Canadian acute care hospitals.
• To highlight an associated resource of evidence-informed practices for harm reduction.

Main Methods:

• Development of a new patient safety measure by CIHI and CPSI.
• The measure categorizes harm into four broad areas within 31 clinical groups.
• Analysis of patient data from Canadian acute care hospitals between 2014-2015.

Main Results:

• Patient harm was identified in approximately 1 in 18 hospital stays during 2014-2015.
• Harmful events were distributed across multiple categories, with no single category dominating.
• The developed measure and resource provide tools for monitoring and identifying patient harm.

Conclusions:

• The new patient safety measure and Improvement Resource are valuable tools for hospitals.
• These tools have the potential to enhance patient safety monitoring and intervention.
• Ongoing refinement of the methodology is planned with continued collaboration.