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Original research
The Irish National Adverse Event Study-2 (INAES-2): longitudinal trends in adverse event rates in the Irish healthcare system
  1. Warren Connolly1,
  2. Natasha Rafter2,
  3. Ronan M Conroy3,
  4. Cornelia Stuart4,
  5. Anne Hickey5,
  6. David J Williams1
  1. 1Department of Geriatric and Stroke Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
  2. 2Division of Population Health Sciences, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
  3. 3Division of Population Health Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
  4. 4Health Service Executive, Dublin, Ireland
  5. 5Division of Population Health Sciences, Department of Psychology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Warren Connolly, Department of Geriatric and Stroke Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Department of Medicine, Dublin, Dublín, Ireland; warrenconnolly{at}rcsi.com

Abstract

Objectives To quantify the prevalence and nature of adverse events in acute Irish hospitals in 2015 and to assess the impact of the National Clinical Programmes and the National Clinical Guidelines on the prevalence of adverse events by comparing these results with the previously published data from 2009.

Design and methods A retrospective chart review of 1605 admissions to eight Irish hospitals in 2015, using identical methods to those used in 2009.

Results The percentage of admissions associated with one or more adverse events was unchanged (p=0.48) at 14% (95% CI=10.4% to 18.4%) in 2015 compared with 12.2% (95% CI=9.5% to 15.5%) in 2009. Similarly, the prevalence of preventable adverse events was unchanged (p=0.3) at 7.4% (95% CI=5.3% to 10.5%) in 2015 compared with 9.1% (95% CI=6.9% to 11.9%) in 2009. The incidence densities of preventable adverse events were 5.6 adverse events per 100 admissions (95% CI=3.4 to 8.0) in 2015 and 7.7 adverse events per 100 admissions (95% CI=5.8 to 9.6) in 2009 (p=0.23). However, the percentage of preventable adverse events due to hospital-associated infections decreased to 22.2% (95% CI=15.2% to 31.1%) in 2015 from 33.1% (95% CI=25.6% to 41.6%) in 2009 (p=0.01).

Conclusion Adverse event rates remained stable between 2009 and 2015. The percentage of preventable adverse events related to hospital-associated infection decreased, which may represent a positive impact of the related national programmes and guidelines.

  • adverse events
  • epidemiology and detection
  • healthcare quality improvement
  • patient safety
  • quality improvement

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2020-011122

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    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request.

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @warconnolly

    • Contributors WC: project management, data collection, analysis, interpretation of the data and drafting the manuscript. NR: staff training, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of the data and critical revision of the drafted manuscript. DJW and AH: design, review, analysis and interpretation of the data and critical revision of the drafted manuscript. RMC: design and data analysis and interpretation. CS: design, project management and critical revision of the drafted manuscript.

    • Funding Funding for the project was received via the Applied Partnership Awards (APA-2016-1877) from the Health Research Board (HRB) and the HSE.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.

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