Article type
Abstract
Background: A clinical incident is defined as an unexpected event that has arisen from providing care, resulting in or having potential to cause unintended harm. Despite best efforts and intentions from healthcare staff, errors still occur, and patients are sometimes harmed through care that was intended to help them. Having effective incident management systems and processes in place is critical for healthcare organisations to ensure timely and appropriate response to errors. Approaches to incident analysis in hospitals are moving from the concept of the error being attributed to a single causal factor to a more holistic approach incorporating family, patient and staff perspectives as well as system or process reviews.
Objectives: The objective of this paper is to summarise the results of a scoping review and ethnography study which explored current approaches to clinical incident analysis in acute hospital settings.
Methods: The review followed JBI scoping review methods and considered empirical research published since 2013 that reported on the use of clinical incident analysis methods within acute care settings. The ethnography study employed a focused ethnographic approach to obtain a deeper understanding of the culture, processes, barriers and facilitators for clinical incident analysis relating to medication safety.
Results: The scoping review highlighted several approaches being undertaken internationally to analyse clinical incidents in hospital environments, ranging from root cause analysis methods to more complex system approaches. Preliminary results from the ethnography study show that local clinical incident processes are complex with multi-faceted barriers, which rely on good communication processes as well as clinician, stakeholder and at times, consumer engagement, to overcome.
Conclusion: Patient safety continues to be a major focus for healthcare organisations worldwide. Learning from any incident often requires patient or stakeholder involvement in discussions on the event. Results from this scoping review and ethnographic study can be used to inform and improve local healthcare organisational approaches to clinical incident analysis and management to ensure patients and staff are at the forefront of improvements and changes to practice.
Objectives: The objective of this paper is to summarise the results of a scoping review and ethnography study which explored current approaches to clinical incident analysis in acute hospital settings.
Methods: The review followed JBI scoping review methods and considered empirical research published since 2013 that reported on the use of clinical incident analysis methods within acute care settings. The ethnography study employed a focused ethnographic approach to obtain a deeper understanding of the culture, processes, barriers and facilitators for clinical incident analysis relating to medication safety.
Results: The scoping review highlighted several approaches being undertaken internationally to analyse clinical incidents in hospital environments, ranging from root cause analysis methods to more complex system approaches. Preliminary results from the ethnography study show that local clinical incident processes are complex with multi-faceted barriers, which rely on good communication processes as well as clinician, stakeholder and at times, consumer engagement, to overcome.
Conclusion: Patient safety continues to be a major focus for healthcare organisations worldwide. Learning from any incident often requires patient or stakeholder involvement in discussions on the event. Results from this scoping review and ethnographic study can be used to inform and improve local healthcare organisational approaches to clinical incident analysis and management to ensure patients and staff are at the forefront of improvements and changes to practice.