Analysis of Incident Reports of a Dental University Hospital.

Yasuyuki Kimura,Ken-Ichi Tonami,Hiroshi Nitta,Akira Toyofuku

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168350

Abstract

Incident reports are important for improving the quality and safety of medical care. Healthcare workers with less than one year of work experience have been reported to cause the most incidents, and the most common incident is “drug-related”. However, few studies have comprehensively analyzed incidents in dentistry, and the characteristics of dental incidents have not been understood. In this study, to understand the characteristics of dental incidents, we comprehensively analyzed 1291 incident reports submitted to the Tokyo Medical and Dental University Dental Hospital from April 2014 to March 2019. As a result, dental outpatient and dental wards had different types of incidents. In outpatient wards, incidents included many dentistry-specific incidents related to “procedures”. Among them, “poor physical condition of the patient during dental treatment” was the most common incident. In contrast, the most common incident from subjects with less than one year of work experience was “damage to soft tissues around the teeth”. Thus, to improve the quality and safety in dentistry, it is was considered necessary to analyze and understand the characteristics of dentistry-specific incidents and to take appropriate measures and educate dental professionals.

Highlights

In 1999, “To Err is Human” [1], reported by the US Institute of Medicine’s (IOM), revealed the current number of deaths due to medical errors and stated that this number can be reduced by taking appropriate measures
This study found that dental outpatient and dental wards have different types of incidents
Most dental incident reporters had less than one year of work experience, which is similar to the analysis at the Medical University Hospital [6]

Summary

Introduction

In 1999, “To Err is Human” [1], reported by the US Institute of Medicine’s (IOM), revealed the current number of deaths due to medical errors and stated that this number can be reduced by taking appropriate measures. This has increased the world’s awareness of medical safety. Due to multiple serious medical accidents in 1999 in Japan, social interest in medical safety has increased, and the country began to work on improving the quality of medical care. The establishment of a system to prevent serious medical accidents was promoted.

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Discussion

Conclusion