Completed
2015

PaSQ: Patient Safety and Quality of Care, developing an EU platform for good practices on quality and safety of care, 2012-2015

Duration: Apr 2012 - Mar 2015

The project is a Joint Action program with the aim to stimulate and develop an exchange mechanism for Member States (MS) for the exchange of good practices on quality and safety of care.

Background
Council Recommendation on Patient Safety (the Recommendation) declared that “it is estimated that in Member States [MS] between 8% and 12% of patients admitted to hospital suffer from adverse events whilst receiving healthcare.” Half of these are judged to be preventable by ordinary standards of care. The Recommendation further stated that “Poor patient safety represents both a severe public health problem and a high economic burden on limited health resources. A large proportion of adverse events, both in the hospital sector and in primary care, are preventable with systemic factors appearing to account for a majority of them.”
The Commission Reflection paper on healthcare quality presented to the Council Working Party on Public Health at Senior Level stated: “The EU is already playing a role in bringing together Member State experiences and best practice in this area. It could further develop this work so that all EU citizens can potentially benefit even more from high quality healthcare. High quality healthcare in this paper is understood as healthcare that is effective, safe and responds to the needs and preferences of patients".
The network approach has proven, in the EUNetPaS project, its efficiency in improving exchange of information and experience sharing between MS as requested in the Council recommendation. During the 30 months of this project, the number of national PS platforms in the EU doubled. These platforms have contributed to the development of PS strategies and to the implementation of tools addressing the main dimensions of PS (culture, education, reporting) at both national and clinical levels.

Aim
PaSQ will build on EUNetPaS’ experience and network to promote the organisation of PS and Quality of care (QC) platforms in all EU MS to improve PS and QC through the sharing of information, experience(s) and the implementation of good practices.

Research question
What are good clinical and organisational practices in health care aiming to improve quality and safety and which could be exchanged and implemented in various EU countries?

Merhods
In various work packages the state of the art in memberstates will be investigated by means of surveys. Common definitions and frameworks will guide the work.

Outcome
An exchange mechanism for Member States (MS) for the exchange of good practices on quality and safety of care.
An organisation of PS and Quality of care (QC) platforms in all EU MS to improve PS and QC through the sharing of information, experience(s) and the implementation of good practices.
Funding
European Commission
Project partners
Ministry of Health, Spain; Avedis Donabedian Foundation, Spain; Society for Quality in Healthcare, Denmark; 62 envolved European organisations