SAFEST: improving quality and patient safety in surgical care through standardisation and harmonisation of perioperative care in Europe

Duration: Jun 2022 - May 2026

Background

The European Commission estimated that between 8% and 12% of patients admitted to hospitals in the EU suffer from adverse event in healthcare. Operative/surgical related adverse effects are within the most common in-hospital adverse events.

Aim

The EU funded SAFEST project aims to improve perioperative patient safety by establishing and implementing patient-centred EU standardised practices to decrease the rate of adverse events in the health care system.

Method

SAFEST will use mixed-methods research involving patients, healthcare providers and other relevant stakeholders in all phases of the project. Using a modified Delphi process, a broad European consensus will be built on patient-centred safety practice standards to be implemented along the entire perioperative journey, from the surgical indication to postoperative recovery.

Next, SAFEST will promote the adoption of other standardised practices through a Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative methodology involving 10 hospitals from five countries. The research team will assess both the impact on clinical and patient reported outcomes and the importance of contextual factors (e.g. country policies and financing, workflows within hospitals) for adoption of the standards.

Result

The study will generate information on critical points of implementation of the standardised, evidence-based practices in hospitals that can be disseminated across Europe.

Project partners

The SAFEST Consortium consists of the following international partners:

• Avedis Donabedian Research Institute (FAD), Spain
• Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (Nivel), the Netherlands
• Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), Portugal
• Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• Spanish Anaesthesia and Reanimation Safety Incident Reporting System (SENSAR), Spain
• University of Tartu (ICM-UT), Estonia
• OptiMedis AG, Germany
• European Hospital and Healthcare Federation (HOPE), Belgium
• European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC), Belgium
• Czech Accreditation Commission, Czech Republic

International website: https://safestsurgery.eu