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Qual Saf Health Care 19:1-7 doi:10.1136/qshc.2008.030726
  • Original research

Exploring the causes of adverse events in hospitals and potential prevention strategies

Table 4

Recommended strategies for preventing AEs in relation to causes of AEs

Prevention strategies Frequency n=315 Percentage* n=315 Human (column %*) n=292 Organisational (column %*) n=92 Patient related (column %*) n=100 Other (column %*) n=21
Quality assurance/peer review 199 65 68 54 78 67
Evaluation 187 53 55 57 56 85
Training 136 50 53 36 48 31
Procedures 138 40 37 67 53 39
Motivation 74 28 28 46 37 15
Information and communication 83 25 24 46 40 15
Technology/equipment 13 7 8 3 3 0
Personnel 9 3 3 3 2 0
Up-scaling 6 2 2 3 3 0
Financial investment 5 2 1 3 3 0
Other 21 4 4 5 2 0
  • Reviewers could select more than one prevention strategy per AE. The number of preventable AEs with technical causes was too small to calculate percentages for the prevention strategy categories.

  • * Percentages were weighted for oversampling of deceased patients and of patients admitted to a university hospital.

  • Within subgroups of AEs that have human, organisational, patient-related or other causes, respectively.

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