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Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study

Introduction Out of hospital emergency medical service patients present unique challenges and ample opportunities for medical error to occur. Identifying medical error is important for mitigating future risk and improving patient safety. Hypothesis/problem Our study describes the adverse event regis...

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Main Author: Geraty, Sian
Other Authors: Bruijns, Stevan
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Division of Emergency Medicine 2019
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access_status_str Open Access
author Geraty, Sian
author2 Bruijns, Stevan
author_browse Bruijns, Stevan
Geraty, Sian
author_facet Bruijns, Stevan
Geraty, Sian
author_sort Geraty, Sian
collection Thesis
description Introduction Out of hospital emergency medical service patients present unique challenges and ample opportunities for medical error to occur. Identifying medical error is important for mitigating future risk and improving patient safety. Hypothesis/problem Our study describes the adverse event registry of an emergency medical service system in a low resource setting over a six-year period. Methods The Western Cape Emergency Medical Services Adverse Event Registry were reviewed for the period 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2015. From these, all cases classified as an adverse event or near miss were extracted for in depth review. Demographics, type of error, and types of recommendations implemented are reported. Results Altogether 106 (69%) adverse events and 47 (31%) near misses were reported over the six-year period. The mean age of patients was 31 years (standard deviation ±24.8). Of these 65 (42%) cases were adult medical patients, 31 (20%) adult trauma patients, 15 (10%) obstetric patients and 42 (27%) paediatric patients. The caseload was observed to increase over the six-year period, whilst system medical errors decreased and individual medical errors increased over the same period. Conclusion In this low resource emergency medical service system, individual medical errors increased and system medical errors decreased as more recommendations derived from adverse events caused by the system errors were implemented. This created a greater need for individual and group training of EMS clinical providers. We recommend further research in order to adequate describe the reason for the increase individual medical error, as well as to find more effective means of detecting adverse events and near misses in this population.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:31:45.395Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2019
publishDateRange 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Division of Emergency Medicine
publisherStr Division of Emergency Medicine
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/29292 Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study Geraty, Sian Bruijns, Stevan Lamprecht, Hein emergency medicine Introduction Out of hospital emergency medical service patients present unique challenges and ample opportunities for medical error to occur. Identifying medical error is important for mitigating future risk and improving patient safety. Hypothesis/problem Our study describes the adverse event registry of an emergency medical service system in a low resource setting over a six-year period. Methods The Western Cape Emergency Medical Services Adverse Event Registry were reviewed for the period 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2015. From these, all cases classified as an adverse event or near miss were extracted for in depth review. Demographics, type of error, and types of recommendations implemented are reported. Results Altogether 106 (69%) adverse events and 47 (31%) near misses were reported over the six-year period. The mean age of patients was 31 years (standard deviation ±24.8). Of these 65 (42%) cases were adult medical patients, 31 (20%) adult trauma patients, 15 (10%) obstetric patients and 42 (27%) paediatric patients. The caseload was observed to increase over the six-year period, whilst system medical errors decreased and individual medical errors increased over the same period. Conclusion In this low resource emergency medical service system, individual medical errors increased and system medical errors decreased as more recommendations derived from adverse events caused by the system errors were implemented. This created a greater need for individual and group training of EMS clinical providers. We recommend further research in order to adequate describe the reason for the increase individual medical error, as well as to find more effective means of detecting adverse events and near misses in this population. 2019-02-05T06:57:07Z 2019-02-05T06:57:07Z 2018 2019-01-31T10:56:27Z Master Thesis Masters MMed http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29292 eng application/pdf Division of Emergency Medicine Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town
spellingShingle emergency medicine
Geraty, Sian
Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study
title_full Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study
title_fullStr Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study
title_full_unstemmed Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study
title_short Adverse event registry analysis of an EMS system in a low resource setting: a descriptive study
title_sort adverse event registry analysis of an ems system in a low resource setting a descriptive study
topic emergency medicine
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29292
work_keys_str_mv AT geratysian adverseeventregistryanalysisofanemssysteminalowresourcesettingadescriptivestudy