Patients perspectives were represented in WP4's work in various ways. Firstly, the organisation “Action against Medical Accidents” (AWA), an independent English charity promoting better patient safety and justice for people who have been adversely affected by a medical accident, was represented in the overall project meetings. Secondly, five Institution-Wide PSIs were commented by a patient representative from AWA, taking into account the experiences gathered by the organisation. The representative was asked also to review and comment the characterisation of the PSIs and a draft of this report. Thirdly, a range of international and national patient interest groups and organisation representatives participated the SImPatIE Consensus Conference in Luxembourg.
The following items were asked for the five PSIs:
- Understanding; is the PSI explained to a degree ensuring patient understanding the aim/measure of the PSI?
- Relevance; Does the PSI provide relevant information for the patients in terms of patient safety (Do you believe it captures relevant aspect of care provided / if no: how can the measure be improved?)
- Feasibility of the PSI; would public results of the PSI assist the patient in the assessment of an institution and the choice of care provider?
As to the question of the understanding of the PSIs, one general comment was given: “The descriptions of the indicators are generally very technical and long. It could be rewritten in a much simpler way that patients would be more likely to understand”.
An extract of the comments made for the five PSIs on the questions of relevance and feasibility of the PSIs is shown beneath.
PSI 1. Measuring Hospital Standardised Mortality Rates
“Yes, I am sure that patients would find a consistent measure of hospital standardized mortality relevant. I believe that this PSI may well be useful to patients in helping make choices about care providers, where they are interested in making choices….”
PSI 3. Patients Experiencing Adverse Events and PSI 4 Patients Informed about an Adverse Event by Staff
“…Yes this information is relevant – both the reported number of incidents and the way that the incident has been dealt with after the event. …. we believe from the point of view of patients as a whole, to have some indicators which are based on patients’ own experience rather than data collected from the provider. This is important from a credibility point of view.”
PSI 6 Transition of Care – Patients Understanding of the Purpose of their Medication
“…Yes, this is very relevant due to medication errors (as well as ‘compliance’) being a well known frequent problem. Communication is vital in helping ensure that both the clinician and the patient have an understanding of what is going on and why, and provides a ‘safety check’….”
PSI 8 Surveying the Development of the Patient Safety Culture
“We believe there should be PSIs for cultural issues, but these need to be more specific (for example the informing patients/relatives of adverse events)….However, we would strongly recommend the adoption of PSIs for different elements of patient safety culture (so long as there is genuine consensus on what constitutes a good patient safety culture)”.
