Patient Safety Culture - Knowledge and Knowledge Needs of Medical Students

Introduction: Ten years after the publication of "To Err is Human" in November 1999, the development of patient safety efforts has been summarised in the statement "Ten years later, a million lives lost, billions of dollars wasted." This leads to the question why, despite evidence-based measures for greater patient safety, they are not implemented or only implemented on a small scale. One approach to promote patient safety is the implementation of a safety culture. Such a safety culture is based on knowledge of employees about safe behaviour and their willingness to implement it. In this context it is interesting to explore the knowledge and the needs of medical students concerning patient safety. Material and Methods: At the University of Magdeburg 354 medical students in their clinical semesters were asked about their knowledge of specific recommendations on patient safety and about their attitude to patient safety and risk management as well as their subjective need for knowledge on this subject. Results: Only 16.7% of the PJ (practical year) students and 11.7% of students in all other clinical semester indicated to know the recommendations for patient safety. This correlated with the answers to questions about single recommendations. The importance of risk management during medical education was considered to be important by 53.3% of the students of all clinical semesters and in particular 80.6% of the surveyed PJ students. The answers to most questions showed a high demand for general information on patient safety. This is seen throughout all questions, especially with increasing clinical experience, and the need for information on single recommendations, such as critical incident reporting systems (CIRS), or Team Time Out. Discussion: The establishment of a safety culture is described as a useful way to fewer patient injuries. This includes knowledge on recommendations for patient safety, which may contribute to the implementation of a safety culture to reduce medical errors. Our survey shows the necessity need for information on patient safety and the students desire to acquire this knowledge. Specific courses on patient safety in first-year student education and then continuing in the post-university training seems to be the right way for an improved safety culture and fewer patient injuries, which should be further evaluated.