Mapping the concept Patient Safety
Mapping review
|Updated
The purpose of the work was to look closer on existing patient safety taxonomies and how they were related to Norwegian concepts.
Key message
In November 2007 the National Unit for Patient Safety took the initiative to start working with patient safety concept. The purpose of the work was to look closer on existing patient safety taxonomies and how they were related to Norwegian concepts.
Patient Safety is a relative new field within the health services research.
There has been a focus on errors in treatment or harm to the patient in the encounter with the health services. Description and understanding of events is central in patient safety. Differences in understanding and use of concepts actualise the need for a concept examination and process for concept development in Norway.
The purpose of this work with taxonomies and classifications was to get an overview of what was going on at an international level and challenges for the Norwegian health services. The group taken a closer look at the taxonomies
- ICPS (International Classification of Patient Safety)
- PSET™ (Patient Safety Event Taxonomy)
- SimPatIE (Safety Improvement for Patients in Europe).
The World Health Organization, ICPS, seems to become the most dominant taxonomy within patient safety at an international level.
Systematic work with concept development within patient safety in Norway should reflect ongoing discussions at a national as well as at international level. It is a need for a clear and shared use and understanding of concepts. Concept development must all the time relate to and support the knowledge production within patient safety, and not become an obstacle in the process.