The European Society for Quality in Healthcare (ESQH) is the lead partner in work package number two: the “Mapping Exercise”. Other partners involved in this work package are CoE, CPME, LMCA, HOPE, CBO.

The workpackage aim

1. To create a systematic overview of activities related to patient safety in European countries


2. To build an interactive web based system for data collection and (two way) communication.

The Mapping Exercise is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to not just gather information, but to do so in a way that sets up enduring networks and helps colleagues across Europe learn from one another. It provides the chance to also develop a descriptive framework at country level to describe the stage of the patient safety movement in any given country. Within the content of this work package all sorts of information potentially can be collected. The programme started with telephone interviews, building on allied research being undertaken by the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization.
SIMPATIE is supporting the WHO Europe patient safety research.

Expert groups

Two expert groups are supporting the conduct of the research and the project management of the Mapping Exercise:

1. A network of special advisors, one from each of the (at least) twenty countries targeted by the research.
   
   Special advisors are responsible for providing information about the systems relating to patient safety within their country, to be a second opinion to help interpret the significance of information and generally to promote the research.
   
   A special advisor is an expert in his/her country in the field of patient safety. They have an overview of what is happening on the several issues, for example patient safety systems, standards, accreditation, regulation, etcetera. Special advisors also are knowledgeable about the institutions which specialise in patient safety and patient safety experts in their country.
   
   
2. A multi-disciplinary reference group, which acts to help formulate the detail of what would be useful to collect and the best way of going about it.
   
   Reference group members are a mixture of individuals with differing perspectives on patient safety and from different European countries. They include care managers, doctors, lawyers, (chief) executives in specialist healthcare quality organisations, safety managers in healthcare and industry, policymakers, scientists, etcetera.

The Mapping exercise is principally funded by the European Commission, with other financial support kindly provided by Datix Limited.

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