Int J Qual Health Care. 2024 Jul 8:mzae064. doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzae064. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The new building of the Hospital in Lichtenfels (Germany) was put into operation in mid-July 2018. Neither the medical personnel nor medical departments have been changed. We want to evaluate how “safe” or “insecure” the new hospital or department in the beginning might have been. Our objective is to investigate if safety decreases at the beginning in a new hospital, despite modern environments and conditions.
METHODS: Adverse events associated with treatment were included to evaluate the total number of adverse events resulting from medical care and medications. Patients records had to be closed and completed, the length of stay had to be at least 24 hours, the patient had to have been formally admitted to the hospital (Institute for Healthcare Improvement IHI GTT “Global Trigger Tool” recommendation). The identified adverse events were grouped into 27 categories of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement “Global Trigger Tool.” We randomly reviewed 40 patient records per month 6 months before and 6 months after moving to the new hospital.
RESULTS: Statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference in individual adverse events. The sum of adverse events was statistically higher after moving into a new hospital. Complete number of harms did reach statistical significance (χ2=6.62; df=1; p<.05; Cramer’s V=0.12), indicating that new environments “triggers” significantly more potential errors (50%) in comparison to the old environments (38.33%).
CONCLUSION: According to our results, the new hospital is slightly insecure in the first period (6 months) after its founding.
PMID:38978150 | DOI:10.1093/intqhc/mzae064
