German Coalition for Patient Safety

Recommendation for preventing wrong site surgery Based on international protocols four actions to prevent wrong-site surgery were defined: (1) asking the patient about his identity and the planned intervention, (2) marking the operation site with an indelible pen, (3) ensuring that the right patient is brought to the operating room, and (4) a “team timeout” of the operating team immediately before the intervention.

Recommendation for establishing critical incident reporting systems (CIRS) in hospitals CIRS are voluntary reporting systems for hospital staff. Their purpose is to discover unsafe practices and to initiate safety measures before patients are harmed. APS published recommendations on how to establish CIRS in hospitals, and is partner of the German Hospital CIRS Network.^[1]

Checklist for medication safety in hospitals A checklist with a graduated scheme to measure medication safety was published as a tool for any hospital to review common activities and projects to improve medication safety.

Medication list for patients At the time of drug prescription doctors often do not have full information about all drugs taken by the patient. This provokes the incalculable risk of unwanted drug interactions and adverse events. APS therefore published a schedule for patients to list their medications.

• German Coalition for Patient Safety Medicine Official Website
• Recommendations and Tools of the German Coalition for Patient Safety (in German)
• German Hospital CIRS Network