The European journal of general practice
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Drug treatment is an important clinical process in primary care that is associated with risk of error and adverse events. ⋯ A number of tools and interventions to investigate and enhance medication safety have been identified. Further research is necessary to implement and evaluate current concepts.
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Patient involvement has only recently received attention as a potentially useful approach to patient safety in primary care. ⋯ There is only weak evidence on the effectiveness of patient involvement in patient safety. The recommendations of the panel can inform future policy and practice on patient involvement in safety in primary care.
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Despite awareness that comparative analysis of patient safety data from several data sources would promote risk reduction, there has been little effort to establish an incident classification system that is generally applicable to patient safety data in European primary care. ⋯ Classification systems are key tools in the analysis of patient safety incidents. A system that has relevance for primary care is now available.
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Healthcare can cause avoidable serious harm to patients. Primary care is not an exception, and the relative lack of research in this area lends urgency to a better understanding of patient safety, the future research agenda and the development of primary care oriented safety programmes. ⋯ Future research studies should target specific primary care domains, using prospective methods and innovative methods such as patient involvement.
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This paper is an introduction to a supplement to The European Journal of General Practice, bringing together a body of research focusing on the issue of patient safety in relation to primary care. The supplement represents the outputs of the LINNEAUS collaboration on patient safety in primary care, which was a four-year (2009-2013) coordination and support action funded under the Framework 7 programme by the European Union. Being a coordination and support action, its aim was not to undertake new research, but to build capacity through engaging primary care researchers and practitioners in identifying some of the key challenges in this area and developing consensus statements, which will be an essential part in developing a future research agenda. This introductory article describes the aims of the LINNEAUS collaboration, provides a brief summary of the reasons to focus on patient safety in primary care, the epidemiological and policy considerations, and an introduction to the papers included in the supplement.