Patient safety

Patient safety is at the heart of all quality-oriented healthcare. It is therefore also a central concern for us at Uniklinik RWTH Aachen. As part of clinical risk management, we are constantly working to improve patient safety. This includes not only the individual risk management projects, but also the fundamental establishment of a healthy and self-confident error culture.

Wherever people work, mistakes happen.

In a constructive analysis and supportive atmosphere, the question is not “Who is to blame?”, but “What contributed to the error?” and “How can the risk be minimized in the future?”.

A Critical Incident Reporting System, or CIRS for short, is a reporting system for anonymized reporting of errors, critical incidents or near misses. The CIRS enables clinics to deal constructively with errors and critical incidents without drawing conclusions about the persons involved and to develop risk-reducing measures.

In accordance with a recommendation by the World Health Organization (WHO), we have been using standardized surgical checklists for a long time. These are used in every clinic before every operation on the ward and in the operating theater to combat the risk of patient, procedure or side mix-ups. The use of the checklist is regularly reviewed by Clinical Quality and Risk Management.

In the morbidity and mortality conferences (M&M conferences), particularly serious disease progressions are systematically analyzed with the involvement of various specialists. Potential for improvement can thus be incorporated into daily practice very quickly. This is also part of a constructive error culture, which ultimately helps to further increase patient safety.

Further information from the Aktionsbündnis Patientensicherheit on the following topics

  • Safety in hospital - a guide for patients
  • Talking is the best way - a guide for patients and relatives after an incident or treatment error
  • Prevention of hospital infections
  • Dealing with medication
  • Preventing thrombosis in the legs

can be found on this website.