Scope and Ambition

Understanding factors causing healthcare provider errors, implementing a blame-free patient safety culture, and developing a legal certainty framework in the health care context can reinforce the care provider commitment to patient safety and reduce second victims -related trauma which increases their resilience in stressful situations for the benefit of patients.

This Training Manual is meant to be applicable to healthcare institutions of various sizes and settings across Europe including both hospitals, social and primary care institutions. Although national strategies on patient safety and the legal framework of each country must be considered, this Training Manual has been designed to be applicable in a vast number of healthcare institutions It can be also applicable in some other participants countries in this COST Action. Certain aspects of the guide will need to be customized based on each institution’s particular needs, goals, and resources.

With the Training Manual is expected to achieve:

1. A better knowledge about the patient safety field.
2. A better understanding of what a mistake, near-miss, and second victims is.
3. New information to identify the consequences of adverse events in patients, relatives, healthcare professionals and teams.
4. A new vision about mistakes in healthcare organizations.
5. New knowledge about potential interventions to support patients, relatives, and healthcare workers when thing go wrong.
6. Some skills to identify what we must do after an adverse event.
7. Some skills to support healthcare workers in the aftermath of stressful situation.
8. Awareness of cultural differences in the interpretation of the meaning of errors between countries and the way in which professionals are coping with.
9. Awareness about the relevance of psychological safety and some ideas about how to promote it.
10. A better capacity to cope with my own emotions when something is wrong.
11. Ability to talk about my emotions after a mistake and to speak up about what I think needs improvement.
12. Awareness about the relevance of the legal framework in patient safety.
13. A better knowledge and skills and a different attitude regarding how, when and what inform patients suffering adverse events.

The Training Manual is divided into two main blocks:

Part A, where we will have an overview of Patient Safety main themes, and Part B, fully dedicated to the second victim phenomenon.