Better Safe than Sorry: Advocating Patient Safety in Dentistry

Abstract

Patient safety is an integral part of health care delivery around the world. Apart from ensuring that patients receive excellent oral health care, it is part of every dentist's oath to ensure the utmost safety of patients in their care. However, sometimes accidents happen in the dental operatory. Despite best intentions, mistakes can be committed during the course of dental treatment that could presumably help the dental profession improve its oral health care delivery system and risk management. The adoption of a patient safety culture in the workplace can potentially minimize the risk of adverse events. Selected adverse events reported in dental literature, the culture of blame and shame, the importance of incident reporting, the role of human factors in the commission of errors and clinical risk management are discussed in this article. This article hopes to bring the awareness of adverse events and patient safety at the fore of every Filipino dentist's consciousness. Likewise, this article hopes to emphasize the importance of instituting a critical incident reporting system that could lead to the identification of possible causes of errors and ways by which the occurrence of adverse events may be prevented in dental practice.

Key words: adverse event, dental emergencies, dental risk management, patient safety