Patients who have been the victim of an adverse medical event will now have a new way to share the details of their experiences, according to the Empowered Patient Coalition. The San Francisco-based not-for-profit group, in collaboration with the Austin, Texas-based Consumers Union Safe Patient Project, has released
a 40-question online survey that patients can use to report on their perspectives of incidents of medical harm.
The survey prompts respondents to provide the details of the incident including the state where it occurred, the type of provider involved, contributing factors, whether they considered litigation and providers' response following the event. Patients have the option of submitting the surveys anonymously.
Patients can also choose from several checklists to indicate the procedure or treatment that was associated with the adverse event. For instance, in the section of the survey related to surgical errors or complications, the respondent can check boxes to indicate “wrong-site surgery” or “post-operative complication.” There are also fields to provide details about healthcare-associated infections, falls, adverse medication events and other types of incidents.
“In the aftermath of such an adverse medical event, patients and their loved ones often have a strong need to share information about their experience,” the coalition said in a news release. “In the United States and Canada, there is no comprehensive system in place to capture and disseminate information on adverse events, and patients often feel excluded and unheard.”
In addition to providing a forum for patients who have experienced medical harm, the coalition also plans to aggregate the data and use it to analyze patterns that could lead to adverse events, according to the release.
