Patient Safety in Primary Care: Conceptual Meanings to the Health Care Team and Patients
Abstract
Introduction: Patient safety in primary care is an emerging priority, and experts have highlighted medications, diagnoses, transitions, referrals, and testing as key safety domains. This study aimed to (1) describe how frontline clinicians, administrators, and staff conceptualize patient safety in primary care; and (2) compare and contrast these conceptual meanings from the patient's perspective.
Methods: We conducted interviews with 101 frontline clinicians, administrators and staff, and focus groups with 65 adult patients at 10 patient-centered medical homes. We used thematic analysis to approach coding.
Results: Findings indicate that frontline personnel conceptualized patient safety more in terms of work functions, which reflect the grouping of tasks or responsibilities to guide how care is being delivered. Frontline personnel and patients conceptualized patient safety in largely consistent ways.
Discussion: Function-based conceptualizations of patient safety in primary care may better reflect frontline personnel and patients' experiences than domain-based conceptualizations, which are favored by experts.
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
- No related articles found.
Cited By...
- Primary care teams reported actions to improve medication safety: a qualitative study with insights in high reliability organising
- Ambulatory Medication Safety in Primary Care: A Systematic Review
- The Changing Face of Primary Care Research and Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs) in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic