Frankfurt/Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - According to practitioners, Hessen is exemplary in its nationwide commitment to greater safety in hospitals. Hesse is the only federal state to have a so-called patient safety regulation. It came into force on October 30, 2019.
Among other things, this stipulates that every hospital must appoint a representative who reports directly to the hospital management. He or she should contribute to the "further development of the safety culture in the hospital", assess risks and make suggestions for avoidance. The hospital must submit a report to the Ministry once a year.
"The Hessian hospitals are currently preparing the first report on patient safety," reported the Ministry of Social Affairs in Wiesbaden. "It gives the ministry an actual status of patient safety in the Hessian clinics and serves to identify existing best-practice examples, but also possible dangers."
This year the cooperation was strengthened and a network of Hessian patient safety officers was founded. "With the new network, they should have a platform to exchange information, to share knowledge more easily and to be able to discuss challenges together," reported the Frankfurt University Hospital, which coordinates the network.
In Hesse's largest hospital, the regulation is good: Hesse is "exemplary nationwide", says the patient safety officer at the university hospital, Kyra Schneider. A survey among the representatives of the Hessian clinics confirmed this: half said their role had "developed positively".
Specifically, patient safety programs are about learning from mistakes: How did that happen? How could it have been avoided? What do we need to change? Reporting systems such as CIRS (Critical Incident Reporting System) can help with this.
Schneider sees a need for improvement above all at the interfaces in the healthcare system - from family doctor to specialist, to hospital, to nursing service. The more interfaces, the more errors could happen. From her point of view, a "medication plan" that all doctors can access together would help.
