Safety climate reduces medication and dislodgement errors in routine intensive care practice

Abstract

To assess the frequency and contributing factors of medication and dislodgement errors attributable to common routine processes in a cohort of intensive care units, with a special focus on the potential impact of safety climate. A prospective, observational, 48 h cross sectional study in 57 intensive care units (ICUs) in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, with self-reporting of medical errors by ICU staff and concurrent assessment of safety climate, workload and level of care. For 795 observed patients, a total of 641 errors affecting 269 patients were reported. This corresponds to a rate of 49.8 errors per 100 patient days related to the administration of medication, loss of artificial airways, and unplanned dislodgement of lines, catheters and drains. In a multilevel model predicting error occurrence at the patient level, odds ratios (OR) per unit increase for the occurrence of at least one medical error were raised for a higher Nine Equivalents of Nursing Manpower Use Score (NEMS) (OR 1.04, 95 % CI 1.02-1.05, p < 0.01) and a higher number of tubes/lines/catheters/drains (OR 1.02, 95 % CI 1.01-1.03, p < 0.01) at the patient level and lowered by a better safety climate at the ICU level (OR per standard deviation 0.67, 95 % CI 0.51-0.89, p < 0.01). Safety climate apparently contributes to a reduction of medical errors that represent a particularly error-prone aspect of frontline staff performance during typical routine processes in intensive care.