All healthcare providers must annually write a patient safety report

All healthcare operations must write a patient safety report each year before March 1. The requirements are found in the Patient Safety Act SFS 2010:659 in Chapter 3
10§ The healthcare provider must, no later than 1 March each year, establish a patient safety report from which it should be apparent
   1. how patient safety work was conducted during the previous calendar year,
   2. what measures have been taken to increase patient safety, and
   3. what results have been achieved.

Issues the patient safety report should address

• What serious incidents have occurred in the operation during the year. What are the deviations and complaints that have arisen. What risk analyses have the operation carried out during the year. What strategic issues were raised in the previous patient safety report and what improvement work has been carried out during the year.

To become a good support in the process for continuous improvements, the patient safety report should then be complemented with two additional steps
• What are the most serious shortcomings in the operation at present.
• Design a strategic plan for patient safety work during the coming year and incorporate it into the operation's planning. Then use the strategic plan as a basis next year when you write a patient safety report.

Healthcare damages cause suffering for the person affected, but often also additional work for the operation. Most healthcare damages can or could have been avoided and issues that may need to be touched upon are for example
• Hygiene, infections and infection prevention work
• Professional development and the need for continuing education
• Safety culture (how inclined are employees to report deviations and how well does the investigation and implementation of change work)
• Documentation and communication
• Medication management
• Fall prevention work

If you're not sure how to write it, there are templates available for patient safety reports at, among others, SKR. Paying customers may also have opinions on how a patient safety report should be written. At the same time, the templates that are developed for a municipality can become too comprehensive and laborious for small healthcare providers. There is nothing stopping you from writing on a plain piece of paper. Keep in mind that the patient safety report is a public document. Anyone has the right to read your patient safety report. Some healthcare providers therefore publish it on their website. It also happens that operations make a combined operational report that includes quality and patient safety reports.

The Head of Operations is responsible for writing the patient safety report, but it is often good to seek support from the Medical Director in the work and preferably other employees as well. Since it is part of the strategic work that can also entail the need for investments, it is inappropriate to completely delegate the work to the Medical Director. In larger companies and municipalities, the management often writes a joint patient safety report for the entire operation.

Some healthcare providers write a joint patient safety report for the entire operation.

Success factors for patient safety work.

• There is a close connection between a good working environment and patient safety.
• Curiosity and learning from mistakes is another important aspect
• Employees who are engaged in quality development work is a third.
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There are always many different ways to work to create high quality. It is also important to consider what quality you want to offer and how you want to be perceived as a nursing home. Are you an "old age home", a more strict "special accommodation" or are you curious about trying new ways of working like "four-year-olds at the nursing home". What you deliver should of course coincide with your way of working even if patient safety must always be of good quality.

The work with the patient safety report is a milestone in the systematic patient safety work during the year. When it is completed, there may be reason to celebrate.

Erland Olsson
Specialist Nurse
Sofrosyne
Quality in elderly care