What are SEAs and M&Ms?

Abstract

SEAs: introduction and overview: Accidents happen. Things do go wrong sometimes – lab samples go astray, animals escape during car park consults. These types of events can have a lasting effect both for the patients, their owners and for the team too. Sometimes the cause of these events might seem obvious at first, but when you study them using a formal approach known as significant event auditing, you can find the root causes. This is used in human primary care and goes beyond the clinical, looking at anything that is significant to caring for patients or running the practice. Looking at these events is a great way to involve the whole practice team to learn from strengths and weaknesses in patient safety, animal and client care, then to make changes if required. The most important part of an Significant Event Audit (SEA) is that team members understand that SEAs are about addressing systems, not about blaming individuals. They can help ensure negative outcomes do not recur and positive outcomes do! This session will introduce delegates to significant event auditing, including top tips, do’s and don’ts and free resources.M&Ms: introduction and overview: It is a fact of life that we all make mistakes, but it is how we learn from our mistakes that truly matters. By talking about adverse events, we can prevent others making the same error again and therefore improve patient care. Morbidity and Mortality rounds (M&Ms), also known as MMCs – Morbidity and Mortality conferences or reviews, have been taking place in human healthcare for over a century. Their use is mandated by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education and in veterinary medicine they now form part of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Practice Standards Scheme. M&Ms provide an open, non-judgemental, confidential and collaborative setting for the review of adverse events. Through identification and presentation of a case where an adverse event has occurred, multidisciplinary reflective discussion, analysis, and identification of contributory factors provide a powerful tool to educate staff and improve patient safety and care. By implementing an organised and structured approach based on a recognised M&M model with clear guidelines for staff, M&Ms can be scheduled regularly, enabling cases to be discussed soon after presentation, to ensure similar adverse events are avoided in the future.