The 1999 Institute of Medicine report raised public awareness of the frequency and cost of adverse drug events in medicine. In response, in November 2000 a coalition of healthcare purchasers announced ...

Background: Laryngospasm is usually easily detected and managed, but may present atypically and/or be precipitated by factors which are not immediately recognised. If poorly managed, it has the ...

Background Quality improvement (QI) efforts have become widespread in healthcare, however there is significant variability in their success. Differences in context are thought to be responsible for ...

Effective improvement and research rely on sustained multidisciplinary collaboration, but few examples are available of centres with the broad range of disciplines and practical experience that are ...

In hospitals, the nursing staff typically represent the largest single element of cost, and nursing is frequently treated as a cost centre rather than a core service line. Efforts to contain hospital ...

Background The trigger tool methodology uses clinical algorithms applied electronically to ‘flag’ medical records where adverse events (AEs) have most likely occurred. The authors sought to create ...

Introduction. Chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP), defined as pain persisting beyond 3 months unrelated to a malignancy, is highly prevalent worldwide, with population estimates varying from 20% to 40%.1–5 ...

Incident reporting is widely recognised as an important method for improving safety in healthcare, and many countries have established their own incident reporting systems.1 However, the actual value ...

Objectives To document the burden of in-hospital falls and fractures, and to identify factors that may increase the risk of these events. Design A retrospective cohort analysis Setting The study was ...

In this issue of BMJ Quality & Safety , Meddings et al 1 report the evaluation of a national effort to reduce two well-known safety targets, central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) and ...

Objective To understand patient and nurse views on usability, design, content, barriers and facilitators of hospital whiteboard utilisation in patient rooms. Design Multimethods study. Setting Adult ...

Since the launch of Choosing Wisely in the United States,1 efforts to raise awareness about avoiding low-value care have spread internationally,2 prompting numerous commentaries,3–7 descriptive ...