Evidence-based organization and patient safety strategies in European hospitals

In Europe, the Safety Improvement for Patients in Europe project established a common European vocabulary and set of indicators and internal and external instruments to improve safety in healthcare and the European Network for Patient Safety created an umbrella network of all European Union (EU) member states and stakeholders to enhance collaboration in the field of patient safety. Currently, the joint action on Patient Safety and Quality of Care is identifying activities and tools for mutual learning among all EU member states. 

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In recent decades, clinical managers have sought to adopt the above recommendations and improve patient care through system design, guidelines and protocols, adverse event (AE) reporting, and risk management. There is, however, limited evidence that the efforts undertaken have led to significant improvements in compliance with evidence-based medicine or reduction in AEs.

The objectives of the authors are to describe the implementation of patient safety strategies and evidence-based organization of care pathway in a sample of European hospitals and to explore the extent to which individual countries, hospitals, and department level effects explain the variations observed.