ERRORS AND ADVERSE EVENTS IN MEDICAL PRACTICE

The article presents a concise overview of international publications covering issues of patient safety, adverse events in medical practice, role of medical errors and negligence in their occurrence. The overview is based on the analysis of Harvard Medical Practice Study results, World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations on patient safety. The study has shown that different adverse events took place in 3-16% of all hospitalized patients, 13% of these events were fatal. More than a half of those events were shown to be potentially preventable. WHO specialists had developed and brought into everyday hospital practice special patient safety toolkit, which has proved to be effective in reducing amount of harm brought to patients, making medical aid safe and attractive. Considered are problems associated with medical errors in Russian Federation.

Harvard Study, medical errors, adverse events, WHO, patient safety