CLINICAL ERROR: TALKING IS WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD IN TREATMENT - OFTEN UNFORTUNATELY ONLY ON PAPER
In healthcare, there is still too little face-to-face communication, often to the detriment of the patient, according to the Patient Safety Action Group (APS). To create more attention for the issue, the APS is drawing up guidelines that are intended to form the basis of good communication.
By Julia Frisch
BERLIN. According to one study, 80 per cent of the time spent in healthcare is spent on communication. Yet a good 80 per cent of critical errors can be traced back to poor communication, said Hardy Müller, Managing Director of the Patient Safety Action Group (APS) on Friday at a press conference to mark the group's annual conference in Berlin. The reason for this is that either nobody speaks to anyone else, things that are said are misunderstood or misinterpreted, or patients do not feel confident enough to ask their doctor if they are unsure about something. "Everyone is responsible", warned APS Chairman Hedwig Francois-Kettner. A change of culture and a change in "mentality" are clearly required for this. Managers in particular need to finally address the issue.
The right approach counts
The Patient Safety Action Group is keen to contribute to this and is currently drawing up guidelines. They should be completed by the autumn and then will be binding on more than just the 630 or so members of the APS. The aim of these, says Francois-Kettner, is also to draw more public attention to measures for good communication in healthcare. The guidelines will also include the APS's call to make communication training courses a fixed part of basic and further training modules.
According to APS Managing Directory Hardy Müller, it is important to talk about mistakes. Lessons have to be learned, especially between various groups of professionals and across hierarchical levels. "How do I tell a colleague that he's forgotten to disinfect his hands, for example, without embarrassing him?
Or how can we use gestures to point out risky actions?", said Müller, providing examples. Hierarchies cannot be removed at a stroke with training courses, "but they are a start for making improvements".
It is important to start this process of talking about errors even with medical students, said Dr Ruth Hecker, Deputy Chairman of the APS. Over the past ten years, a lot of positive things have happened in hospitals. However awareness that "errors can happen to anyone and you have to admit to them" is something that needs to be stepped up.
The Patient Safety Action Group acts as a consortium partner in a project sponsored by the innovation fund that aims to establish an error avoidance and learning system in outpatient practices. Over the next three years, the system, known as "CIRSforte", will be developed and implemented in practices.
Patient Safety Award bestowed
As part of its event, the APS has once again bestowed the "German Prize for Patient Safety" which comes with a Euro 10,000 prize fund. First prize went to the University Hospital of Heidelberg.
Illegible or incomplete prescriptions no longer leave the hospital premises. A quality assurance system, which is also based on electronic prescribing software, ensures that prescriptions are written out correctly.
The other prizes went to the children's palliative care centre at the Vestische Kinder- und Jugendklinik in Datteln and to the Department of General, Trauma and Restorative Surgery at the LMU in Munich.
