Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Oct 2006
Multicenter StudyA trigger tool to identify adverse events in the intensive care unit.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement has tested and taught use of a variety of trigger tools, including those for adverse medication events, neonatal intensive care events, and a global trigger tool for measuring all event categories in a hospital. The trigger tools have evolved as a complimentary adjunct to voluntary reporting. The Trigger Tool technique was used to identify the rate of occurrence of adverse events in the intensive care unit (ICU), and a subset of ICUs described those events in detail. ⋯ The Trigger Tool methodology is a practical approach to enhance detection of adverse events in ICU patients. Evaluation of these adverse events can be used to direct resource use for improvement work. The measurement of these sampled chart reviews can also be used to follow the impact of the change strategies on the occurrence of adverse events within a local ICU.