How do we make hospitals safer places for patients?
with Amber Petty and Alfred Deakin Professor Tracey BucknallOne in every ten of the 11 million Australians admitted to hospital each year suffers some kind of harm – from falls to infection – that’s unrelated to their reason for being in hospital in the first place. What’s behind these incidents and how can they be prevented?
“People go to hospital to be cared for and improve their health. Preventable adverse events, medical errors or harm unrelated to their illness is not expected, nor acceptable,” Tracey says.
A landmark Australian study revealed that 25 per cent of patients who were harmed in hospital were permanently disabled and the main cause of those events was a failure by health professionals to recognise and act on available information.
Join Tracey and Amber as they examine the complex decision making that takes place in busy hospital environments and discuss how understanding how health professionals and patients make decisions may lead to improving the decision-making process and reduce the risk of harm to patients.
Alfred Deakin Professor Tracey Bucknall is Chair in Nursing at Alfred Health, Melbourne. Her research concentrates on understanding how individuals make decisions routinely and in uncertainty and on understanding the environmental and social influences in healthcare. She focusses especially on patient safety, symptom management across clinical settings, and the implementation of research evidence into practice to improve patient outcomes.
