Registration and management of 'Never Events' in Swiss hospitals—the perspective of clinical risk managers (December 2021)

Summary

This study in the Journal of Patient Safety examined how hospitals outside mandatory 'never event' regulations identify, register, and manage 'never events', and whether practices are associated with hospital size. In Switzerland, there is no mandatory reporting of 'never events' and little is known about how hospitals in countries without 'never event' policies deal with these incidents in terms of registration and analyses.

The study found that many Swiss hospitals do not have valid data on the occurrence of “never events” available, and do not have reliable processes installed for the registration and examination of these events. Surprisingly, larger hospitals do not seem to be better prepared for “never events” management.