Rates of patient safety indicators in Belgian hospitals were low but generally higher than in US hospitals, 2016–18 (September 2024)

Summary

Over twenty years ago, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) developed its Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) to monitor potentially preventable and severe adverse events within hospitals. Application of PSIs outside the US has been explored, but it is uncertain whether they remain relevant within Europe as there are no up-to-date assessments of overall PSI-associated adverse event rates or interhospital variability. This study in Health Affairs assesses the nationwide occurrence and variability of thirteen adverse events across all 101 hospitals in Belgium.

The authors found that:

• although adverse event rates were generally low, they were higher than equivalent US rates.
• there was considerable variability between hospitals in rates of adverse events.

They recommend that policy makers and hospital managers should prioritise PSIs that have high adverse event rates or large variability to improve the quality of care in Belgian hospitals.