EM patient safety incidents as a proportion of all hospital incidents and in comparison to selected speciality groups
| Study | Setting* | Study design (number of records)† | Percentage of all adverse events by speciality group | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EM | Surgery | Medicine | O&G | Anaesthetics | Paediatrics | |||
| Leape et al4 1991 USA | 51 Acute hospitals | Retrospective random (30 195) | 2.9 (in ED) | – | – | – | – | – |
| Wilson et al3 1995 Australia | 28 Acute hospitals | Stratified random retrospective (14 184) | 1.5 | 47 | 6.5 | 11.9 | 2.0 | 2.1 |
| Thomas et al67 2000 USA | 28 hospitals | Stratified random retrospective (14 700) | 1.7‡ | 46.1 | 23.2 | 15.9 | 0.7 | 0.9 |
*Psychiatric,3 ,4 ,67 day-case,3 rehabilitation and drug/alcohol treatment67 excluded.
†Two-stage review. Nurses using 18-point3 ,4 or 15-point67 criteria, followed by review by one67 or two doctors.
‡3% occurred in ED.
ED, emergency department; EM, emergency medicine; O&G, obstetrics and gynaecology.