title: Registration of adverse patient occurrences in a university hospital: relations between adverse patient occurrences and characteristics of hospitalized patients.
abstract: This paper reports the results of a survey on adverse patient occurrences (APOs) in patient care in a university hospital in The Netherlands. Screening for APOs is important as an instrument of quality assurance. Results from 1 year of screening have been related to specific patient characteristics. Age, length of stay and diagnosis group are strongly related to the identified APOs. The chances of APOs are very high if the patient belongs to certain diagnosis groups (operation procedure salivary gland, malignant disorder ear, nose, throat) and at the same time has a long length of stay in the hospital. The chances of being afflicted with more than one APO are strongly related to age and length of stay. With regard to the types of APO, this study shows a relation between patient characteristics and some APOs, but the statistical significance or the nature of these relations varies with type.
authors.affiliation: University Hospital Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bomhof
authors.forename: F H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Nieman
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Reerink
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D003933:Diagnosis; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D007049:Iatrogenic Disease; D007902:Length of Stay; D009426:Netherlands; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012042:Registries; D012308:Risk Management