Adverse events in the global healthcare practice of an Occupational Mutual Insurance Company in Spain.

BACKGROUND: Patient safety is currently a main issue in healthcare practice. Adverse events (AEs) management is a key instrument for the application of strategies to prevent harm to patients.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the type, severity and preventability, according to validated scales, of AEs occurring annually in the healthcare practice of an Occupational Mutual Insurance Company in order to implement action plans to improve patient safety.

METHODS: We analyzed the reported AEs in an Incident Reporting System and AEs detected in the Audit program of clinical records as a result of treating injured or ill workers in our 88 ambulatory care centers.

RESULTS: We detected 28 AEs in the clinical records (CR), representing 0.05 AE/CR, with maximum values in the COM sample (26 AEs, 0.11) and much lower in INT (1 AEs, 0.02) and MIN (1 AE, 0.02). The most frequent AE type was procedure-related, followed by infection and care. AEs of severity level D (11 cases) and E (9 cases) predominated, while level F was also detected (6 cases). Intermediate values in preventability (3 and 4) predominated, 61.5% were preventable. With the Incident Reporting System, 27 AEs were identified, predominated by procedural type. Most reported AE severities was in levels E (10 cases) and C (8 cases), 89% were preventable.

CONCLUSION: Our company detects AEs via the Incident Reporting System and annual Audit program of clinical records, both of which are complementary, and may result in the implementation of more effective Patient Safety measures.