A retrospective analysis of near-miss incidents at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Riyadh, KSA

This study seeks to establish an error-free reporting system that enhances patient safety and organisational culture. It investigates the prevalence of near-miss incident reporting systems by healthcare professionals in the General Surgery Department. This retrospective observational study was conducted at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Riyadh, KSA. A sample of 253 medical records, ranging from January 2018 to December 2020, belonging to secondary patients was obtained using the near-miss Datix reporting and occurrence variance reporting system. The demographic variable data of registered patients were based on their age group (18–80 years), length of stay, date of admission, medication prescribed for more than four days, and whether they underwent surgical interventions. The cases were documented after the occurrence of a near-miss incident using a convenience sampling technique. In terms of prevalence in the near-miss main categories, medical errors were 248 (98.2%), workplace violations were two (0.80%), and others was one (0.40%). The number of incidence in the subcategories were: prescribing, 227 (89.7%); dispensing, 16 (6.30%) wrong dose/strength, 118 (46.6%), male, 123 (48.6%), and female, 130 (51.4%). The mean age and S.D. of patients was 1.94 ± 0.88 years and the demographic nationality as 1.16 ± 0.37. The one-sample t-test value for the main categories was −235 (p-value < 0.001). Near-misses are recognised as essential targets for continuous quality improvement tools to mitigate preoperative incidents in hospitals. These findings can benefit the advancement of techniques for improving guidelines related to compliance and effective communication to improve the preoperative safety of patients.