According to Never Events for Hospital Care in Canada, a recent report from Health Quality Ontario and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, many events that harm patients can be prevented using organizational checks and balances.
The report, written by health care quality experts from across Canada, talks about 15 events that can occur while a patient is under the care of a hospital, highlighting strategies that help identify and reduce these events. Some of the “never events” include surgery on the wrong body part or wrong patient; wrong tissue, biological implant or blood product given to a patient and others. The report also highlights strategies to help identify and reduce these events.
“We created this report with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute to help increase awareness for incidents that can be prevented,” says Dr. Joshua Tepper, president and CEO of Health Quality Ontario. “We hope that by calling attention to these 15 never events, Canadian hospitals will rally around them and harness their collective knowledge, expertise and experiences to prevent them from happening.”
“Until now, we did not have agreement in Canada on a list of never events,” says Chris Power, CEO of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute. “National consensus on never events is an important step in identifying focus. It’s not about blaming and shaming. It’s about identifying problems and sharing solutions to prevent these incidents from happening.”
The full report and the complete list of never events here.
