Operationalising the WHO International Classification of Patient Safety Framework

It is estimated that around 16.6% of hospital admissions in Australia are associated an adverse clinical event. Human factors classification tools can guide the identification of causal factors for healthcare-related deaths and assist in identifying areas for preventive efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Conceptual Framework for the International Classification of Patient Safety (ICPS) was developed to work towards a common understanding of patient safety concepts and terminology. While the ICPS is an informational framework, it needs to be adapted and the concepts defined before it could be used as a human factors classification taxonomy. Coronial findings can provide a rich source of information on the causes and contributions to deaths that occurred in the healthcare system.

This study aims to operationalise and use the ICPS to identify incident characteristics and contributing factors of deaths involving complications of medical or surgical care in Australia.