Reporting of patient safety incidents in minimally invasive thoracic surgery: a national registered thoracic surgeons experience for improvement of patient safety

OBJECTIVES: The reporting of patient safety incidents (PSIs) occurring in minimally invasive thoracic surgery (MITS) is crucial. However, previous reports focused mainly on catastrophic events whereas minor events are often underreported. METHODS: All voluntary reports of MITS-related PSIs were retrospectively extracted from the French REX database for 'in-depth analysis'. From 2008 to 2019, we retrospectively analysed and graded events according to the WHO classification of PSIs: near miss events, no harm incidents and harmful incidents. Causes and corrective measures were analysed according to the human-technology-organization triad. RESULTS: Of the 5145 cardiothoracic surgery PSIs declared, 407 were related to MITS. Among them, MITS was performed for primary lung cancer in 317 (78%) and consisted in a lobectomy in 249 (61%) patients. PSIs were: near miss events in 42 (10%) patients, no harm incidents in 81 (20%) patients and harmful incidents in 284 (70%) patients (mild: n = 163, 40%; moderate: n = 78, 19%; severe: n = 36, 9%; and deaths: n = 7, 2%). Human factors represented the most important cause of PSIs with 267/407 (65.6%) cases, including mainly vascular injuries (n = 90; 22%) and non-vascular injuries (n = 43; 11%). Pulmonary arteries were the most affected site with 57/91 cases (62%). In all, there were 7 deaths (2%), 53 patients required second surgery (13%) and 30 required additional lung resection (7%). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of reported MITS -related PSIs were non-catastrophic. Human factors were the main cause of PSIs. Systematic reporting and analysis of these PSIs will allow surgeon and his team to avoid a large proportion of them.