Study of adverse events by reviewing the medical records: The experience of the University Hospital of Verona (Italy)

Abstract

Patient safety is worldwide recognized as a high priority for health care systems. One important indicator of patient safety is the rate of Adverse Events (AEs) occurred among hospitalized patients. Retrospective studies of hospital case records have shown that a significant proportion of hospital admissions result in AEs in a variety of countries. The survey was carried out at the University Hospital of Verona as a pilot study for the application in the Italian context of a tool of retrospective detection of adverse events by reviewing the medical records as applied in British hospitals. 1,2 Objective of this study was to determine the incidence of AEs among hospitalized patients, examine their preventability and compare the incidence found with the international studies. The tool of \u201cclinical audit\u201d was used as second step to identify in the more critical cases the improvement actions to be introduced. The final aim was to solve the emerged problematic issues in a targeted, shared and appropriate way