Patient safety risks in Primary Health Care: identification and prevention of adverse events

Objective: To determine whether there are pro-active strategies for identifying risks to patient safety, the potential risks identified by the professionals, and the solutions to prevent their occurrence. Materials and methods: A descriptive-retrospective study was conducted on Primary Health Care units in the process of accreditation. This work was performed at the Andalusian Agency for Health Care Quality through the analysis of primary healthcare units assessed. A total of 61 Primary healthcare units were assessed between June 2010 to June 2011. The main measurements were methods for identifying and prioritising risks, prioritised risks, and solutions provided by the Primary Health Care units. The risks and solutions were classified into 8 categories (medication, infection, diagnosis, management, patient accidents, communication, care, medical devices/equipment). The data were obtained in our computer application for the accreditation process (Me_jora C). Results: Just under half (47.5%) of the healthcare units used tools for proactive analysis of patient safety risks. The risks identified most often were related to medication (100%), and infection (89.6%). The main solutions identified were related to protocols for medication review, hand hygiene training, alcohol-based hand-wash solutions, and interventions on patients on polypharmacy. Conclusions: A large proportion of adverse events that occur in health care are preventable, thus it is necessary to establish preventive strategies. This study shows the solutions for Primary Health Care units to prevent adverse events, and other patient safety risks not found in other studies (related to the use of medical devices/equipment). (C) 2011 SECA. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L. All rights reserved.