Now the nature and scope of unintentional health care-related damage in hospitals have been made clear, concerned parties have set joint goals for the coming five years. The nationwide safety programme ‘Voorkom schade, werk veilig’ aims to reduce potentially avoidable damage by 50%. New research focuses on monitoring this goal and several in-depth studies, such as those of unintentional harm caused in elderly patients, migrants and patients with a cardiac arrest.

From a causal study conducted previously by EMGO+ and NIVEL it has transpired that a lack of coordination and cooperation between wards and professionals contributes to the occurrence of incidents and unintentional damage. Targeted team training and a structured transfer of patient information could possibly lead to improvements. Ongoing appraisal research will have to decide this.