The Impact of Incident Reports on Patients’ Safety in Hospital Setting: A Systematic Reviews

The Impact of Incident Reports on Patients’ Safety in Hospital Setting: A Systematic Reviews

Introduction/Background

Patient safety is recognised as a global public health issue, causing death and suffering in all types of patients and incurring costs in all countries. The global health community has made significant and sustained efforts to improve safety and quality of health services (World Health Orgnisation, 2017). Patient safety is an essential part of nursing care that aims to prevent avoidable errors and patient harm. Patient safety is a feature of a healthcare system and a set of tested ways for improving care. Staff can apply these safety improvement methods to make systems of care more reliable

An errors is defined as something that is carried out incorrectly through unawareness. It is a mistake in conduct and a moral fault. On the other hand, human error is a social label which means the individual should respond differently than usual. Therefore, they are responsible for the outcome of these errors. It is crucial to report errors, especially in healthcare settings. Healthcare systems should create protocols to prevent and eliminate these errors (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2015).

Medication errors is one of the most common medical errors that occurs in hospitals, primary healthcare settings and/or nursing homes (World Health Organization, 2016). It causes adverse effects and long stays in healthcare facilities which increases the cost of medical supplies for instance. In the US, it is estimated that between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths every year are due to medical errors, which include drug errors (WHO, 2016). According to Ashcroft et al., (2015), the incidence ratio in the UK is 8.6 – 9.1, based on 20 hospitals involved in the study. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the medication errors reporting system is not operating effectively due to healthcare professionals’ lack of awareness about the system and their poor knowledge about medicines. This contribute to issues regarding patient safety and quality of life (Abdel-Latif, 2016).
Adverse events or life-threating situations can be caused by reactions to drugs, including complications caused by interactions with other drugs. They require hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization. In some cases, an adverse event requires an intervention which might jeopardise the patient’s life (National Institute for Health Research 2016). Death is one of the main results of adverse medical errors such as medication errors in any form – prescribing, administrating, calculation (Abdel-Latif, 2016).
Incident Report
Incident Reporting Systems (IRS) are and will continue to be an important influence on improving patient safety. They can provide valuable insights into how and why patients can be harmed at the organizational level.
What is the impact of incident report on patient safety?

Secondary question

What is the possible environmental and the personal behaviour barriers on the nurses in reporting incident either near missing or adverse events?