The motivation of this survey.

Please note that the main motivation of this survey is not to compare countries or hospitals, but rather to map the current state of Quality and Safety in Emergency Medicine across Europe and identify analytical methods for improvement and more effective decision-making.

This survey seeks your valuable insights on patients’ safety issues, medical errors and event reporting within hospitals. 

Additional purposes of this survey are:

• Raise staff awareness about patient safety
• Assess the current status of patient safety culture
• Identify strengths and areas for improvement
• Evaluate the impact of safety initiatives

It will require approximately 15 minutes of your time.  

Your participation is greatly appreciated and will contribute to enhancing patient safety and care quality.

Please note that email addresses are not collected as per the survey settings, ensuring that responses remain anonymous and cannot be linked to individual respondents. We guarantee complete anonymity throughout the data collection and analysis process. The survey analysis will be conducted by a data scientist who is not a physician, ensuring an unbiased and conflict-free approach. Furthermore, the data analysis will be performed in a blinded manner to maintain objectivity.

The survey, approved by the EUSEM board of directors and officially endorsed by EUSEM, will be distributed to all European EM national societies. 

The following are the main terms used in the survey:

1) Patient safety. The avoidance and prevention of patient injuries or adverse events resulting from the processes of healthcare delivery. It includes all kinds of medical errors such as the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (i.e., error of execution or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (i.e., error of planning)

2) Patient safety event. Any type of healthcare-related error, mistake, or incident, regardless of whether it results in patient harm.

3) Adverse event. Injury is caused by medical management rather than the underlying condition of the patient.

4) Preventable adverse events. Adverse event attributable to error.

5) Negligent adverse event. The care provided failed to meet the standard of care reasonably expected of an average physician/nurse qualified to take care of the patient.

6) Patient safety culture. Safety culture in an organization encompasses the collective values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and behaviors that shape the commitment to and effectiveness of its health and safety management. A positive safety culture is marked by mutual trust, shared importance of safety, and confidence in preventive measures

Abbreviations: ED emergency department; EM emergency medicine; Q&S quality and safety