Are Incident Reporting Systems in Healthcare Systems a Requirement for Improving Patient Safety? A Review

Abstract

Adverse events such as medical errors, injuries, or equipment failures which could harm patients, caregivers, or other individuals or has the potential to harm them are known as medical incidents. Avoidance of unintended or unexpected harm to people during the provision of healthcare is mandatory. In healthcare settings incident reporting refers to collecting healthcare incident data with the aim of enhancing patient safety and quality of care. This review aims to discuss the practice, usefulness and drawbacks of Incident Reporting System (IRS) in healthcare systems. The history of adverse events assessment in hospital setup runs back till 1980s. Since then, many developed countries have put emphasis on the establishment of IRSs in their health systems. In 2005, the World Health Organization issued a guideline to be followed on the establishment of incident reporting systems in healthcare organizations. Benefits of incident reporting in healthcare systems include prevention of reoccurrences of adverse events, provision an updated knowledge and understanding about risk events, create lessons and promote safety-minded culture. It saves a considerable sum of money of the healthcare budget in the long run. Under-reporting is the main challenge in incident reporting. It is recommended to implement comprehensive IRSs in health services in all developing countries in order to drive good medical practice and to ensure the safety and quality of patient care.

Investigating Electronic Incident Reporting Systems and Its Role Within Healthcare to Improve Patient Safety: An Integrative Literature Review

“…However, strong leadership within hospital subcultures is still required in order to advocate and endure reporting, to open the door for organizational learning, and ultimately improve patient safety (Walsh et al, 2010). Fernando et al (2023) came to a similar conclusion in stating that in order to implement an efficient and effective IRS, the leaders at each level of the organization must play important roles. Leadership from executives, line managers, and informal network leaders throughout healthcare institutions have to understand their key roles in IRS (Fernando et al, 2023).…”

“…Jha (2019) noted that patient safety is an essential component in healthcare because the occurrence of adverse events due to unsafe care is likely to be one of the ten leading causes of death and disability in the world. Fernando et al (2023) held a related view in stating that patient safety forms the foundation of healthcare delivery just as biological, physiological, and safety needs form the foundation of Maslow's hierarchy (Maslow, 1954). Stated differently, if the patient does not feel safe or is not safe, then this creates a negative patient experience.…”

“…Incident reporting in healthcare refers to collecting health care incident data with the aim of improving quality of patient safety and care. Incident reporting identifies safety hazards and guides the development for proper interventions to mitigate risks, thereby reducing harm (Fernando et al, 2023). Stated another way, Incident Reporting Systems (IRSs) enables healthcare organizations to identify the common errors and their causative factors (Fernando et al, p.1, 2023).…”

“…At present, IRSs have been implemented within various healthcare regions of many developed countries in the world including the United Kingdom (UK), Australia, United States (USA) and Japan. In many cases, specialist committees have been assigned in some hospitals to analyze the adverse events and in return, to suggest and put in place preventive measures (Fernando et al, 2023). Although these systems have known to experience high costs to the client, IRSs provide valuable insights as to how and why patients could be harmed at the organizational level (Pham et al, 2013).…”

“…As noted, the development of reporting systems for adverse events in health care have been traced back to the late 1970s (Elliott et al, 2014). However, according to Fernando et al (2023), an Incident Reporting System (IRS) was first officially used by the aviation industry as a tool which allowed pilots and other aviation professionals to confidentially report near misses or close call events in the interest of improving aviation safety. As a comparison, the first adverse event assessment in a hospital setting was known to take place in New York in 1984.…”