Sources of unsafe primary care for older adults: a mixed-methods analysis of patient safety incident reports

Alison Cooper, Adrian Edwards, Huw Williams, Huw P. Evans, Anthony Avery, Peter Hibbert, Meredith Makeham, Aziz Sheikh, Liam J. Donaldson, Andrew Carson-Stevens*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: older adults are frequent users of primary healthcare services, but are at increased risk of healthcare-related harm in this setting. Objectives: to describe the factors associated with actual or potential harm to patients aged 65 years and older, treated in primary care, to identify action to produce safer care. Design and Setting: a cross-sectional mixed-methods analysis of a national (England and Wales) database of patient safety incident reports from 2005 to 2013. Subjects: 1,591 primary care patient safety incident reports regarding patients aged 65 years and older. Methods: we developed a classification system for the analysis of patient safety incident reports to describe: the incident and preceding chain of incidents; other contributory factors; and patient harm outcome. We combined findings from exploratory descriptive and thematic analyses to identify key sources of unsafe care. Results: the main sources of unsafe care in our weighted sample were due to: medication-related incidents e.g. prescribing, dispensing and administering (n = 486, 31%; 15% serious patient harm); communication-related incidents e.g. incomplete or non-transfer of information across care boundaries (n = 390, 25%; 12% serious patient harm); and clinical decision-making incidents which led to the most serious patient harm outcomes (n = 203, 13%; 41% serious patient harm). Conclusion: priority areas for further research to determine the burden and preventability of unsafe primary care for older adults, include: the timely electronic tools for prescribing, dispensing and administering medication in the community; electronic transfer of information between healthcare settings; and, better clinical decision-making support and guidance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)833-839
Number of pages7
JournalAge and Ageing
Volume46
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2017

Keywords

  • Older adults
  • Patient safety
  • Primary care
  • Quality improvement

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