First OECD Health Care Quality Indicators Seminar on Improving Patient Safety Data Systems - Agenda and Presentations - Held on the 29-30 June 2006

Safety Data for Safer Care

Summary of the OECD HCQI Patient Safety Seminar; Dublin Ireland; June 29-30, 2006

The HCQI Patient Safety seminar in Dublin was the first meeting of the HCQI Patient Safety Expert Group and the first multilateral patient safety meeting focusing on data systems to be held in Europe since the release of the UK Report, “An Organisation with a Memory” and the US Institute of Medicine report, “To Err is Human.”  The meeting was jointly chaired by the OECD Secretariat and the Irish Department of Health and Children.  This purpose of this seminar, therefore, was threefold:

• Review progress and barriers in implementing national patient safety data systems within the OECD and
• Discuss an agenda for improving patient safety data systems within a context of their use for guiding policy
• Create consensus on how to use the OECD HCQI safety indicators to encourage harmonisation of indicator sets for safety across the major international organisations active in patient safety

Click here for a copy of the agenda.
Click here for a copy of the conference report.

Seminar organisation

The seminar was conducted over two days.  The first day focused on learning from country and international experts on experiences in national patient safety data systems.  In particular, the afternoon focused on specific operational barriers to achieving comparable international data in patient safety, including tested or potential solutions to those barriers.  The second day featured a high level plenary session with speeches by the Irish Deputy Prime Minister and Tanaiste, Mary Harney; the Director of the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Dr. Carolyn Clancy; and the President of the World Alliance on Patient Safety and Chief Medical Officer of the United Kingdom, Sir Liam Donaldson.  The presentations and discussion on this day focused on next steps, i.e. how to move from data to action and to best address barriers to achieving internationally comparable patient safety data.

Seminar output

The seminar will be summarised in a “proceedings” binder that will present short papers of all the presentations and an overall summary by the OECD of the seminar and conclusions for the OECD HCQI Patient Safety Expert Group’s work and future agenda.  In terms of next steps, the OECD HCQI Patient Safety Subgroup will be developing work in two specific areas over 2006 and 2007. The first is a data-based research effort that will focus on examining specific data element and coding issues that impede international comparability of patient safety indicators based on hospital administrative data.  The second is a formative research project aimed at gathering qualitative information on the type, structure and specific data elements collected in country adverse event reporting systems.  Collaboration with international partners from the World Health Organization and the European Commission on this will be essential.

Meeting presentations

Below are links to the meeting presentations in the order they were delivered at the seminar.

THURSDAY 29 JUNE

Session 1 Improving Patient Safety through Knowledge:  the Role of Safety Data Systems

This session welcomed the participants and set the context for the seminar.

• Peter Scherer, Head, Health Division; OECD – Overview of the HCQI Project

Session 2 Leadership Lessons:  Putting Safety Information on the Agenda

• Opening commentary – From the Patient Perspective: Ms. Margaret Murphy, Patient Advocate, Republic of Ireland 
• National Perspective: Sarah Scobie, National Patient Safety Agency, UK
• Regional Perspective: Carlo Liva, Head of Quality and Accreditation; National Agency for Regional Health Care Services, Italy 
• International Perspective and Conclusions: Gerard Schmets, WHO Regional Office for Europe 

Session 3 Setting the Agenda:  The Situation for Safety Data Systems in the OECD

Topic 1 Assessing Patient Safety Through Administrative Data - Adapting and Improving Existing Systems

• Patrick Romano, University of California Davis 
• Leifur Barðarsson, Chair, Nordic Council of Ministers Working Group on Quality Measurement 

Topic 2 Adverse Events Systems Experience in OECD Countries – the case of Spain and Ireland

• Yolanda Agra Varela and Enrique Terol, Ministry of Health of Spain 
• Dr. Ailish Quinlan, (critical event reporting) and Tim Delaney (medication error reporting), Ireland
• Dr Giuseppe Murolo, MD, Italian Ministry of Health; Department of Health Planning 

Topic 3 Medical practice, infection surveys and assessing systems for safety

• Jennifer Zelmer, Vice President, Research and Analysis, Canadian Institute for Health Information 
• Peter B. Angood, Vice-President & Chief Patient Safety Officer; Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations 

FRIDAY 30 JUNE

Session 4 Safety Data for Safer Care:  From Knowing to Doing

• Dr. Carolyn Clancy, Director; US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 

Session 5 Next Steps:  Toward a Workplan for Patient Safety Data Systems Development

• Dr. Jan Haeck, Dutch Health Observatory and Health Care Quality Inspectorate 
• Dr. Edward Kelley, Head, Health Care Quality Indicators Project; OECD 

Post Seminar Session Standardised hospital mortality ratios and their applications for patient safety data

Sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Health Information

• Sir Brian Jarmen, United Kingdom
• Hans Rutberg, National Board of Health; Sweden