Keywords: patient safety, quality improvement, Significant Event Analysis, primary care

Introduction:

Primary health care professionals are expected to acquire core quality improvement (QI) and patient safety (PS) competencies in order to improve health outcomes and provide safe patient care. Adult learning techniques, combining didactic end experiential learning as in Significant Event Analysis (SEA), have been identified as key factors in delivering QI and PS curricula to health professionals. Significant Event Analysis (SEA), a method of case-based auditing developed by Pringle et al, constitutes a well-established methodology for team-based safety investigations and quality improvement. A significant event refers to an umbrella term including adverse events where patients suffered unintentional harm, as well as near misses where harm was possible, but avoided. SEA represents a reflective process in which individual episodes of care are being systematically analysed by team members to ascertain learning and future improvements in quality of care.

Aim(s):

The aim of this workshop is to evaluate and promote the potential of Significant Event Analysis (SEA) as a team-based reflective tool for health professionals in primary care, enhancing quality improvement and patient safety.

Programme:

The workshop will consist of three parts. In the first part, the plenary presentation will be given to present the SEA background and protocol. The participants will then be divided into small groups with the task to use SEA on selected case scenarios. This will be followed by a plenary presentation and discussion.

Workshop agenda:
Introduction (10 min): Significant Event Analysis (SEA)
Small group work (35 min): Case scenarios – use of SEA
Conclusions (15 min)

The expected results represent various experiences in using SEA method by the workshop participants, as well as promotion of using SEA reflective practice in self- and team-directed learning of health professionals. SEA provides opportunities for team-based quality improvement in primary care, enhancing care performance and patient safety.