Background: Veterinary healthcare can be a complex process and may lead to unwanted, potentially harmful patient safety incidents as a consequence, negatively impacting both the practice team and client satisfaction. The aim of this study was to identify how such incidents impact cats and dogs by analysing reports gathered in a large-scale voluntary incident reporting system. Methods: Descriptive statistical analysis was used to study a total of 2155 incident reports, submitted by 130 practices on mainland Europe. Results: Incidents caused harm in more than 40% of reports. Medicationrelated incidents were the most frequent type of incident recorded (40%). Treatment-related incidents were the most common type of incident causing patient harm (55%). Anaesthesia-related incidents were the most severe type of incident, resulting in patient death in 18% of these reports. Most incidents were reported from hospital wards, and a significantly higher proportion of cats were harmed by incidents compared to dogs.
Conclusion:This study demonstrates that patients are regularly harmed by incidents, with medication-related incidents being most common. In depth understanding of incident data can help develop interventions to reduce the risk of incident recurrence.
Veterinary care is complex, and like any healthcare there are risks of unintentional harm occurring. Increasing demands from owners in combination with an increasing pet population, may further increase risk. There is a need to expand knowledge about the nature of adverse events to learn how to reduce recurrence. The aim of this study was to explore if there was a di erence in harm between cats and dogs by analysing voluntary incident reports.
MethodsDescriptive statistical analysis was deployed to characterize key features in incident reports recorded between April 2018 and September 2020. The reports were gathered through a company speci c voluntary reporting system in 128 small animal practices on mainland Europe.
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