Analysis of the attitudes and needs/demands of dental practitioners in the field of patient safety and risk management

Abstract

Patient safety is a relatively new discipline aimed at improving the quality of care, minimising treatment errors and improving the safety of patients. Although health professions always have a specific concern for patient safety, few practitioners have a clear understanding of the broad context and not all health-care providers practice it. This might well be because of limited availability of information and materials as well as a lack of national or international laws and regulations. Thus, through member National Dental Associations (NDAs) of FDI (World Dental Federation), the present study aimed at analysing the attitudes of dental practitioners to the issues of patient safety and risk management, and the availability of materials and laws and regulations. Determination of their specific needs and demands in these fields was also attempted. For this purpose, an online questionnaire was developed for the member NDAs to respond. Questions mainly focused on the awareness regarding patient safety, availability of materials and regulations and the particular topics for which dentists needed further knowledge and information. A total of 40 responses were received. While some countries lack any documents, patient safety documents and materials were available in some countries but they were mostly limited to infection control and radiation protection and did not address other important aspects of patient safety. The NDAs clearly demanded more information. A significant number of countries also lacked national laws and/or regulations regarding patient safety. Although dentistry always has a genuine concern for patient safety, the findings of the survey suggest that yet more efforts are needed to improve the knowledge, understanding and awareness of dental practitioners regarding its broad context and the relatively 'new' patient safety culture. NDAs, dental educators, national, regional and international dental organisations and health authorities all can play significant roles to achieve these goals.

Incident reporting in dentistry: Clinical supervisor's awareness, practice and perceived barriers

“…Additionally, Taylor et al argue that this limitation can be lifted through the implementation of an anonymous reporting system. It is crucial to develop reporting systems that are directed towards patient safety rather than exposing and blaming operators . Dentistry can benefit from other industries’ systems such as the Aviation Safety Action Program, which gives a thorough incident analysis with a de‐identification process that prevents a person's identity from being connected with information .…”

“…Such a negative inclination could dangerously influence and tarnish students’ sense of accountability and moral commitment as future health care providers. Therefore, a transparent communication between management and the supervisors for the purposes of such systems is solely based on the continuous growth of education, quality and assuring patients’ safety …”

“…The significance of patient safety and risk management in dentistry has surfaced as dental settings bear delicate procedures carried out by teams utilising numerous devices and tools in complex environments . Although the occurrence of adverse events is not recorded systematically, recent understanding of accepting and advocating these events as a source of learning has emerged . An incident is defined as “an unplanned, undesired event that hinders completion of a task and may cause injury or other damage” .…”

“…of learning has emerged. 3,4 An incident is defined as "an unplanned, undesired event that hinders completion of a task and may cause injury or other damage". 5 Adverse event and harm are terms frequently used in the scope of patient safety instead of incident.…”

Cross-infection and infection control in dentistry: Knowledge, attitude and practice of patients attended dental clinics in King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

“…Patient safety is an important medical discipline which aims at improving quality of patient care, minimizing treatment mistakes and improving safety [1]. Infectious diseases represent an important public health problem facing health care systems in many countries [2].…”