Workshop 3: Multi-professional approach to patient safety

Workshop 3: Multi-professional approach to patient safety

Jonathan Round and Sophie Vaughan

Medical error is now the third most common cause of death in hospitals. Therefore, patient safety has become a key concern in healthcare. Clinical care has become increasingly complex and dangerous, with potentially toxic medications on one hand and multiple opportunities to miss lifesaving interventions on the other. The prevalent approach to these challenges is to create a ‘system’ that both tells practitioners what to do and also prevents errors leading to patient harm. While this approach has saved many lives, there is much scope to make better decisions leading to fewer, less critical errors.

This workshop teaches attendees four tools that can be used for any staff group to highlight what errors they are likely to make, when they are likely to make them and how to use safety concerns to make the department safer. These tools will be easily transferrable to teams, and can be used in local teaching sessions or away days to make departments more aware and safer. The facilitators have a long track record in teaching in the field of medical error, leading local, national and international workshops or seminars.