Veterinary Patient Safety and Human Factors

The delivery of veterinary care is complex. Advances in veterinary science make decision making challenging, with a multitude of diagnostic and treatment options. Alongside this, the veterinary profession is quickly evolving into teams consisting of different professional roles, delivering care for single or multiple animal species. This complexity means some level of unwanted events and outcomes is inevitable, as is the need to develop systems and processes to avoid harm to animal patients and their owners and ensure excellent clinical outcomes.

This book provides a practical toolkit to help the veterinary team consider the causes of harm and, importantly, patient safety enhancement. It examines why and how adverse events occur, and the importance of recording both harm events and ‘near misses’ which could have led to harm. It introduces the science of Human Factors, which acknowledges the limitations of individuals working in a system, and provides practical ideas for introducing a systems-wide approach in the clinical setting, helping to optimize patient outcomes and team wellbeing. The final chapter offers tools to bring Human Factors and Patient Safety into veterinary education and professional development.

Acknowledging the breadth and variation of the profession, this book is essential reading for any veterinary practitioner, regardless of setting, practice size or species treated.