Commission Publishes 2nd Report on Patient Safety

The report formulated is based on Member State replies to a questionnaire, stakeholder responses to the corresponding public consultation and a Eurobarometer survey. Although it varies from Member State to Member State, the Commission reports that the Recommendations have spurred new legislation and policy on patient safety in 16 of the 28 Member States.

Several key areas in need of improvement were identified however including:

• Interoperability of eHealth systems remains a key problem;
  
• Data on multidisciplinary training on patient safety remains lacking;
  
• Awareness amongst healthcare professionals of the concept of patient empowerment remains very low.
  

Of particular interest, is what the Commission points to in terms of potential future action on patient safety. The following ideas were identified by the Member States themselves:

• New patient safety policy and programmes;
  
• The development and review of patient safety standards;
  
• The development of blame-free reporting systems.
  

Stakeholders on the other hand, pointed to the many areas for future action including:

• Ensuring the use of new technologies for the benefit of patient safety;
  
• Ensuring education and training for healthcare professions, patients families and informal carers;
  
• Improving patient safety in non-hospital care;
  
• Exploring the possibility of enlarging the scope of EU action;
  
• Establishing a common definition of quality of care;
  
• Developing an EU strategy on health-related information for patients;
  
• Setting up a permanent European forum for best practices;
  
• Taking into account impact of working conditions on quality of care.
  

The full text is available here.