IMPROVING PATIENT SAFETY: A DEVELOPMENTAL COLLABORATION LINKING CLINICAL AND THEORETICAL EDUCATION OPTIMIZING THE SYSTEMATIC REPORTING OF CLINICAL ERRORS

Every year millions of patients worldwide suffer injury or death due to unsafe care, thus improving patient safety is both a national and international priority. A developmental project involving University College Zealand and clinical partners in the region focused upon the improvement of patient safety by optimizing the theory-practice connection with respect to the development of students’ competencies and the reporting of clinical errors.
Population: 2nd year nursing students at University College Zealand (N: 56).
Informed consent and full anonymity.
Aims:
- To increase patient safety by raising student awareness with respect to the role of the reporting of clinical errors and thus increase patient safety
- To prepare a structured and systematical teaching program
Methodology: an explorative, longitudinal study
- Identification of students’ self-evaluated knowledge, skills and competences with respect to the prevention of clinical errors
- Theoretical teaching intervention
- Evaluation of effects of theoretical teaching intervention following the intervention and after 1 year
- Quantitative and qualitative data collected in both the educational and clinical settings using a before and after design and a control group
- Data has been analyzed using a frequency distribution and reported in percentages
Results:
Data suggests that the theoretical teaching intervention had a positive effect upon students’ self-evaluated knowledge, skills and competences with respect to the prevention of clinical errors. An interesting finding though is that despite the legal requirements concerning the mandatory reporting of all clinical errors, 37% of the students participating in this study report that they perhaps would be reluctant to report an eventual clinical error. Further initiatives are thus necessary in order to ensure the reporting of clinical errors.