[Patient safety in real time at covid-19 units in Region Jönköping County]. / PIR ­ patientsäkerhet i realtid ­ lämpade sig väl under pandemin.

The adaptation of the healthcare needed in the covid-19 pandemic poses challenges to patient safety. Proactive patient safety work must continue even under conditions such as a pandemic. Methods are needed that assess and support patient safety as the work is carried out. Patient safety in real time appears to be such a useful method in which patient record review to identify patient harm is combined with interviews with patients and healthcare staff. The method was used in wards and intensive care units (ICU) for covid-19 patients in Region Jönköping County. Patient harm was found in ICU care. Patients were overall satisfied with the care, and in the interviews with healthcare staff areas for improvement were identified. Valid indicators for patient record review to evaluate patient harm in covid-19 need to be developed. To judge if patient harm in care of a Covid-19 is avoidable or not is difficult since the level of knowledge and treatment principles in the disease develops very fast.

Senior alert: a quality registry to support a standardized, structured, and systematic preventive care process for older adults.

The average life expectancy and the proportion of the elderly in the Western countries are increasing. The care processes used for the elderly are known to differ between the care providers in Sweden. Accordingly, the need to develop a system to support the processes in order to attain a standardized, structured, and systematic approach to improve preventive care processes for the elderly has been called for. The County Council of Jönköping developed a national Web-based quality registry, Senior Alert, with a focus on the following areas: falls, pressure ulcers, malnutrition, and oral health. The patients are evaluated using validated risk assessment instruments, and the care is planned, executed, evaluated. The registry supports the users to work with preventive care systematically and in a standardized way and provides feedback to the care providers on their preventive care processes. The registry helps the caregivers fulfill the preventive care according to the best available clinical knowledge and practice. The registry also provides the government and health care politicians with data for setting aims for elderly care. The registry is used in 90% of the municipalities and county councils throughout the country. The total number of risk assessments completed from 2009 to 2014 exceeded 1 000 000.