Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Sociotechnical Aspects: Clinicians and Technology
Lecture:Medical errors
Patient safety
Slide content:Adverse Events Adverse events occur in all health care provider environments and in all nations Data suggests a majority of these events occur in the hospital setting Other areas are not immune to adverse events 6
Slide notes:According to the Food and Drug Administration, [quote] An adverse event is any undesirable experience associated with the use of a medical product in a patient. [end quote] Adverse events can result, for example, in a life-threatening event; hospitalization (initial or prolonged); an emergency department visit or ambulatory provider visit; a patient disability or permanent damage. Its reasonable to assume that adverse events occur in all health care settings, including nursing homes, long-term care facilities, emergency rooms, pharmacies, and even a patients own home, and they occur in all nations. The data suggests that most of these events occur in the hospital or inpatient setting, although researchers are unsure about the number of errors in the ambulatory setting because the data for outpatient events is often fragmented and incomplete. 6