Multisite review shows serious adverse events occur frequently in outpatient care

Multisite review shows serious adverse events occur frequently in outpatient care

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-2063  

Editorial: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M24-0876  

URL goes live when the embargo lifts     

A multisite review of electronic health records (EHRs) found that adverse events during outpatient care were relatively common and often serious. Adverse drug events accounted for about two-thirds of adverse events. Other events included health care–associated infections and surgical or procedural events. The review is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School conducted a retrospective review of EHRs for 3,103 patients receiving outpatient care. They found that 7 percent of outpatients experienced at least one adverse event, with drug events being the most common. Adverse events occurred more frequently among older adults and were often preventable. According to the authors, these data serve as an urgent call for patient safety research and innovation in the outpatient setting. They suggest systems that track and intervene on outpatient adverse events to become routine and standardized.

An accompanying editorial from the University of California San Francisco highlights the ways in which outpatient care has transformed since the study was conducted and may provide opportunities for intervention. The author notes that the use of patient portals to engage with outpatient care has significantly increased since 2018, expanding contact between patient and clinician in between visits. The author also points to the more regular use of generative artificial intelligence in health care settings as a tool to transform the study of outpatient safety. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of patient and family engagement in outpatient care safety interventions.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at [email protected]. To speak with the corresponding author, David M. Levine, MD, MPH, MA, please contact Serena Bronda at [email protected].