Serious Reportable Events in Healthcare 2011 

The NQF-endorsed® Serious Reportable Events in Healthcare were released initially in 2002, one of the first products of the ongoing effort to enable healthcare quality and safety improvement by introducing tools to assess, measure, and report organizational performance. Those efforts were aimed, as they are now, at facilitating learning within the healthcare industry that would lead to delivery of high-quality and safer healthcare. Then, as now, the focus is on what can be done on the part of all members of the healthcare enterprise to ensure that those who seek care are protected from injury while receiving “world-class” healthcare. This can occur only when all parts of the healthcare industry work together to find and correct unsafe conditions in the spirit of providing an environment that is safe for patients and for those involved in the delivery of care. Each individual event (rather than frequencies of events) should be reported and investigated by healthcare institutions as they occur. In keeping with the expectations set in the initial report, Serious Reportable Events in Healthcare—2011 Update has undergone significant changes. The purpose of the update is to: 1) ensure the continued currency and appropriateness of each event in the list; 2) ensure the events remain appropriate for public accountability in light of their standing as voluntary consensus standards; and 3) provide guidance gained by implementers to those just beginning to report these events across hospitals. Additionally, effort has been made to clarify what events should be reported for three other settings of care: office-based practices, ambulatory surgery centers, and skilled nursing facilities.