Patient Safety Incident Report Trend In Hospital Pulau Pinang

Abstract

Introduction There has been tremendous emphasis on patient safety in the past decade, and more so in the recent years. Each year, there are approximately 134 million adverse events which take place in mostly low- and middle-income countries. The initial MPSG implemented since 2013 consisted of 13 goals for hospitals with Intensive Care Units, and 11 goals for hospitals without Intensive Care Units, with 4 goals for clinics. In the launching of MPSG 2.20, there are only 7 goals, with 9 KPIS which are included for monitoring in hospitals, and 4 goals for clinics (Patient Safety Council Malaysia & Medical Care Quality Section 2021).

Objective The objective of this study is to outline the trend of patient incident reports which occur in Hospital Pulau Pinang in the past 5 years.

Methodology – this is a study which compares the trend of patient incidents which occur in Hospital Pulau Pinang for the past 5 years including the current year.

Results The results showed a total 308 incidents in year 2020, with decreasing trend in 2021 and 2022 which are 269 incidents and 184 incidents respectively. While in 2023, there is a surge in number of patient safety incidents; total of 319 incidents.  In 2024, the data collected was only from January to June 2024 showed a total 196 patient safety incidents.

Discussion It seemed that the total incident reports decreased initially and this could be due to the hospital being a hub of referral for COVID-19 patients, where during the peak, 13 wards and 4 ICUs were utilised for COVID-19 patients in the region, out of the 63 total wards available.

Conclusion The number of incident reports per year is noted to be high. However, there needs to be more training and awareness among our healthcare workers with regards to the availability of this system and the maturity of the Incident Reporting System.