Race Differences in Reported "Near Miss" Patient Safety Events in Health Care System High Reliability Organizations

This study aimed to determine if race differences exist in voluntarily reported near-miss patient safety events in a large integrated, 10-hospital health care system on its journey to become a high reliability organization.

From July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2017, employees in a mid-Atlantic health care system voluntarily reported near-miss events by type using an occurrence reporting system referred to as the Patient Safety Event Management System. Inpatients, outpatients, and observation patients were identified as "Black," "White," or "other" (n = 39,390). Using retrospective analysis and χ2 goodness of fit, comparisons of race proportions were conducted to determine differences at the health system level, by hospital, and by event type.

Significant race differences existed: (1) overall across the health care system with higher proportions of events reported for Whites and lower proportions of events reported for Blacks in the Patient Safety Event Management System, (2) by site in 9 of 10 hospitals, and (3) by type. All differences were significant at P < 0.05.

Race differences in near-miss patient safety events exist in voluntary reporting systems by type. Health care organizations, particularly health care high reliability organizations, can use these findings to help to identify areas of further study and investigation. Further study and investigation should include efforts to understand the root cause of the differences found in this study, including the role of reporting bias by race.