Canada creates list of events that should never happen in hospitals, Report

Surgery on the wrong body part or patient, leaving a sponge in a patient, and giving a patient the wrong tissue, egg, sperm or blood product are among a new Canadian list of 15 “never events” for hospitals.

Led by Health Quality Ontario and supported by the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, the new report: Never Events for Hospital Care in Canada, says all never events are preventable using organizational checks and balances.

A few never events in the report include:

Surgery on the wrong body part or wrong patient, or conducting the wrong procedure

Wrong tissue, biological implant or blood product given to a patient

Unintended foreign object left in a patient after a procedure

To create the report, the group of health care quality organizations from across Canada, known as the Never Events Action Team, researched, surveyed and consulted with providers, patients and the public before recommending a list of never events in Canada’s health care system.

The list of never events is meant to encourage the ongoing development of a safer health system. By identifying what events should be never events, it is hoped that Canadian hospitals will rally around them and harness their collective knowledge, expertise and experiences to prevent them from happening.

Agencies/Canadajournal

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