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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The latest quarterly issue of HA Risk Alert was published today (January 22) by the Hospital Authority (HA) as a risk management and communications initiative to further strengthen incident reporting and share lessons learnt for the improvement of safety in public hospitals.
The current issue of HA Risk Alert reported on three cases of retained consumables and instruments, two medication incidents and a misplaced nasogastric feeding tube incident. Reported events also included five cases of patient suicide. Among the reported serious untoward events, there were 21 medication incidents and a case of patient misidentification. Subsequent to incident review and analysis of root causes of these incidents, important lessons of patient safety are identified, while recommendations are made and shared in this publication to avoid similar events in future.
Furthermore, the HA also released the Annual Report on Sentinel and Serious Untoward Events covering the 12 months from October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014, which was discussed and endorsed by the HA Board today.
This year's report includes a total of 49 sentinel events during the period, as compared with 26 cases in last year's report.
Serious untoward events are unexpected occurrences which have not caused death or permanent harm to patients but would have had the potential to do so without timely intervention. During the year, 94 serious untoward events were reported, with 85 and nine events related to medication error and patient misidentification respectively.
The Annual Report on Sentinel and Serious Untoward Events can be accessed by health-care workers and the public at www.ha.org.hk/report/sentinel_event, while the HA Risk Alert has been distributed to health-care professionals in public hospitals for continuous quality improvement purposes and can be accessed by the public at www.ha.org.hk/riskalert. The next issue will be published on April 24.
Ends/Thursday, January 22, 2015
Issued at HKT 17:17
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