Promuovere il coinvolgimento dei pazienti per migliorare la sicurezza in chirurgia

Abstract

Background: Patient safety has become essential with increasing complexity of health systems and the consequent increase in patient damage. Clinical risk management aims to prevent and reduce the risks, errors and damages that occur to patients during health care. The direct involvement of patients in care pathways can be both an important source of information on potential risks and a resource for improving safety.

Objective: To improve patient safety in surgery by promoting the active involvement of patients admitted to an orthopedic department.

Method: After check-in, a checklist was administered to the patients, consisting of 21 items that took into consideration the good practices to be applied in surgery. The checklists returned by the patients at the end of their stay were analyzed to identify any areas for improvement.

Results: From July 2019 to September 2019, the checklists were administered to 76 patients who underwent hip or knee arthroplasty, admitted to an orthopedic ward. 63% of the delivered checklists were returned by the patients. The analysis made it possible to verify that good practices for safety in surgery are effectively applied by health personnel. However, some critical areas were identified on which to intervene with improvement actions.

Conclusions: This work demonstrates that patient involvement can help improve the safety of the surgical path, in order to prevent potential adverse events. Further studies are needed with sufficient sample power to validate the findings of this work.