
Developing the Improving Post-Event Analysis and Communication Together (Impact) Tool to Involve Patients and Families in Post-Event Analysis
Published in: Journal of Nursing & Interprofessional Leadership in Quality & Safety, v. 1, no. 1, Fall 2016, p. 1-17
Posted on RAND.org on January 03, 2017
The analysis of harmful errors is typically led by a team within the hospital and includes clinicians and staff who were involved at the time of the event. However, the patient and family are often left out of this process and are not asked to participate in the investigation. Because little guidance is available for facilitating patient input, an interprofessional team convened to develop a semi-structured tool to be used in eliciting patient feedback. Some 72 persons who had experienced adverse events were interviewed. Using a thematic analysis approach, the team learned that 51% of the interviewees preferred to participate in event analysis directly through an interview and 47% recommended that patients and families should be offered the opportunity to provide their views immediately (within 24–48 hours of the event). The resulting tool, IMPACT, incorporates a conversational flow of questions that allows patients to tell their story, focus their attention on specific causative factors, and give recommendations to improve healthcare in their institutions or to prevent further harm.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.