Abstract

GAITAN-DUARTE, Hernando; GOMEZ SANCHEZ, Pió I  and  ESLAVA-SCHMALBACH, Javier. Attitudes of personnel monitoring intra-hospital adverse events in Colombia. Rev. salud pública [online]. 2009, vol.11, n.5, pp.745-753. ISSN 0124-0064.

Objective Detecting adverse events (AE) is part of managing hospitalised patients' safety. Suitable AE monitoring is affected by many factors regarding any particular institution and its workers. This article was aimed at describing the difficulties emerging from identifying and evaluating events and suggested interventions from the workers' viewpoint. Methods Qualitative research. A focus group was formed with key informants from previous research entitled "The incidence and avoidability of adverse events in three institutions in Colombia, 2006." A conceptual framework was constructed based on publications pertaining to AEs and health-providing institutions; summaries were made by topic regarding the content of the focus group's work by systematising, categorising and readjusting the data. The triangulation method was used for guar-anteeing its credibility, transferability, reliability and that it could be confirmed. Results It is commonly thought that monitoring AE only consists of taking inventories related to negative work consequences into account; this opinion has been determined by prior organisational culture. Strategies used for increasing AE reporting were: intrapersonal work, raising awareness that nobody is exempt from being involved in an adverse event and encouraging administrative support for resolving deficiencies. The prospective monitoring method becomes hampered when applying it to services involving a large volume of information. A tendency was observed for specialist committees to underestimate an event's association. Conclusions Heath workers, support personnel and management must have mutual confidence and adopt team-work so that future AE may be prevented.

Keywords : Safety management; medical errors; heath services; hospitalisation; qualitative research.

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