Patient Safety in Long-Term Care Under the Microscope

In February 2008, The Canadian Patient Safety Institute released a background paper calling for a stronger research push to identify the best practices to optimize the safety of residents in long-term care settings.

The paper, jointly funded by CPSI, Capital Health (Edmonton) and CapitalCare (Edmonton), reviewed the current scientific literature on resident safety in long-term care and surveyed long-term care stakeholders from across the country - including frontline staff, senior management, policy makers, researchers, and family members.

The study concludes that despite the abundance of scientific literature examining quality and patient safety in long-term care, there are numerous limitations with existing studies and very few have been conducted in Canada. This has left a considerable knowledge gap regarding patient safety in Canadian long-term care settings.

http://www.patientsafetyinstitute.ca/news/ltcPaper.html