Report: A report on patient safety in Europe: medication errors and hospital-acquired infection

Abstract

Abstract

The report ‘Patient Safety in Europe: Medication Errors and Hospital-acquired Infection’ was commissioned by the European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) in order to support its policy statement on Patient Safety. The report is authored by a working-group within the Workgroup of European Nurse Researchers and it is a snapshot of current work in the European areas surveyed. Medication errors and hospital-acquired infections are examined and a range of European studies are used as evidence. The result shows that studies on medication safety and nursing are few and they are heterogeneous in design making comparability between research reports difficult. Future research should capture the environmental and human context of error. WHO has identified hand hygiene as a major patient safety issue in relation to health care associated infections (HCAI) and there is general agreement in the literature that effective hand hygiene remains the most important initiative in the control of infection. To maximize EFNs lobbying function EFN and WENR should work together.