Patient safety in emergency medical services : Sécurité des patients dans les services médicaux d'urgence : promouvoir et harmoniser une culture de sécurité des patients dans les services médicaux d'urgence (SMU)

To begin to formally Systematic Review address current patient safety issues in EMS, the The first phase of the research involved a compre- Emergency Medical Services Chiefs of Canada (EM- hensive systematic review of the literature to col- SCC) and the Calgary EMS Foundation partnered late all current knowledge of patient safety specific with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) to to eme [...] Patient safety was defined as the reduction the lack of knowledge surrounding adverse events in and mitigation of unsafe acts within the healthcare the EMS setting, the Canadian Patient Safety Insti- system. [...] Excluded from this definition are discussions tute partnered with the EMS Chiefs of Canada and of best practices for specific diseases (such as the ad- the Calgary EMS Foundation and commissioned, ministration of midazolam for treatment of seizure through a competitive peer-reviewed process, the suppression, early identification of an acute myocar- Rescu team at the University of Toronto to form a [...] Further, the lack of a com- and the world; and 3) a Canadian roundtable event mon language to define adverse events in EMS to discuss the findings and put them into context. [...] The need to protect themselves, the patient and other providers from risks and hazards in addition to dealing with crowd control, coping with the environment and attempting to communicate clearly all compete for the provider’s attention and can lead to a very chaotic situation.