Significant differences in the quality of incident reports – a comparison of four acute hospitals in Finland

Abstract

The aim of the study was to compare the quality of the description of the content of patient safety incident reports of ‘near miss’ and ‘adverse event’ occurrences and to examine whether the contributing factors behind the incident were identified. Data were collected from an electronic incident reporting system for a 1-year period (2015) in four acute hospitals in Finland. The analysis framework was based on the incident reporting guidelines, and the data were analysed using statistical methods. The most deficiencies were in records of the consequences of the event for the staff and unit (47%) and the consequences of the event (35%). The description of the content of ‘near miss’ situations did not differ significantly from ‘adverse event’ situations, but statistically significant differences were found between the hospitals in the quality of the description of the content of incident reports. Incident reports did not always identify the processes behind the incident or the factors that contributed to the occurrence of the incident, such as human error. Blaming was still evident in the incident report descriptions.

Keywords:

• Hospital incident reporting
• near miss
• incidents
• adverse event
• quality of incident description

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The present work was financially supported by the State Research Funding, Finland.

Notes on contributors

Tuula Saarikoski

Tuula Saarikoski is a Patient Safety Co-ordinator.

Kaisa Haatainen

Kaisa Haatainen is a patient safety manager at the Kuopio University Hospital.

Risto Roine

Risto Roine is an emeritus professor of patient safety at the University of Eastern Finland.

Hannele Turunen

Hannele Turunen is professor (nursing science) at the University of Eastern Finland and nurse director at Kuopio University Hospital, Finland. Hannele’s research interest is to examine patient safety culture from different perspectives, and together with her international research group she has published more than 100 scientific articles on the topic.