Patient safety in extra-hospital emergencies

One of the biggest challenges for the public health sector is to ensure the clinical safety of the patient, which is affected by mistakes made in pre-hospital emergency care. A culture of safety is encouraged and health professionals have tools at their disposal to help them maintain that safety. Objetive: We propose as a hypothesis that compliance with safety standards in for the care of patients using extra-hospital emergency systems improves care and minimize risks. Our goal is to build a tool that enables us to measure the safety quality for patients in need of non-hospital emergency services. Method: To create this tool we have taken the SENECA study as a basis, and using the European Quality Model of the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM). The indicators were created using the Delphi Method. Results: A total of 74 indicators were proposed, 9 of which were proposed by the panelists, and 44% being accepted. A definitive tool of 41 indicators was created. The most notable indicators were; "The expiry dates of consumable material and drugs that are stored in the units are controlled'' grouped in "Alliances and resources'', and "Patients who do not adhere to treatment due to unresolved doubts'' grouped in "Key results''. Conclusions: The use of the EFQM model to build the assessment tool allows information to be appropriately structured and to organize safety standards and indicators of security in a consistent manner. This methodology helped to propose a suitable tool for measuring patient safety in an extra-hospital situation. The application of this tool will identify areas for improvement related to the patient safety. (C) 2012 SECA. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L. All rights reserved.