Adverse Events in Hospitals: Methods for Identifying Events

摘要

The term adverse event describes harm to a patient as a result of medical care or harm that occurs in a health care setting. The term never events refers to a specific list of serious events, such as surgery on the wrong patient, that the National Quality Forum deemed should never occur in a healthcare setting. The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 (the Act) mandated that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) report to Congress about such events, including making recommendations about processes for identifying events. To meet the requirements of the Act, OIG published a series of reports in 2008 and will publish additional reports based on ongoing work.