Doctors carry out a surgery at the Hà Nội-based Thanh Nhàn Hospital. — VNA/VNS Photo Minh Quyết

HÀ NỘI — The Department of Medical Service Administration (DMSA), under the Ministry of Health has recently organised the first two training courses to pilot an online medical incident reporting, risk management and patient safety toolkit.

The courses were given to all hospitals across Bắc Giang and Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu provinces.

The pilot implementation of the online medical incident reporting toolkit will help hospital leaders and management agencies quickly update medical incidents, so that timely solutions can be found.

The Deputy Chairman of the National Medical Council and also Director of the DMSA, Hà Anh Đức, said that every year, the sector welcomes 170 million outpatients and over 10 million inpatients.

Each inpatient requires dozens, even hundreds of clinical procedures. Thus, in a year, hundreds of millions of clinical procedures are performed, leaving many potential risks.

"No matter how well medical staff do, medical incidents and professional errors can potentially occur," Đức said.

According to the DMSA, on average, each year, 134 million medical incidents occur in hospitals in low and middle-income countries (LMIC), causing about 2.6 million deaths, while about half of those medical incidents are preventable.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that more than one in 10 patients experience medical incidents, about 12 per cent of which cause serious harm, including permanent disability or death.

In the long term, when hospitals make reports, there will be more data to analyse incidents in each specialty. On that basis, medical incidents will be prevented, minimising professional errors.

Proactive in troubleshooting

Deputy Director of the DMSA, Nguyễn Trọng Khoa, said that medical incidents were unwanted situations that occur during the diagnosis, care and treatment process, not due to the disease progression or the patient's constitution.

Serious medical incidents can occur in any healthcare organisation. Failure to respond promptly and effectively to some incidents can lead to devastating consequences.

To be proactive in handling medical incidents, hospitals need to prepare for incidents, such as assessing potential risks in the medical care process including checking, monitoring and reviewing high risks that may occur. This evaluation must be conducted at least once every six months.

Hospitals must also establish a rapid response team specialising in handling incidents, including a plan and specific assignment for each individual involved.

They must ensure that when a medical incident occurs, it must be handled appropriately and smoothly. At the same time, it is necessary to establish detailed procedures and plans for specific situations that may occur.

Especially when an incident occurs, in addition to ensuring patient safety, medical staff should provide detailed information about the incident to hospital leaders or supervisors.

As for the patient's relatives, medical workers must provide full information. If they have a mistake, they must admit, affirm responsibility for remedying the consequences and seek sympathy and support from the patient and the patient's family. — VNS