Patient safety incidents in hospice care: observations from interdisciplinary case conferences.

Background: In the home hospice environment, issues arise every day presenting challenges to the safety, care, and quality of the dying experience. The literature pertaining to the safety challenges in this environment is limited.

Aim: The study explored two research questions; 1) What types of patient safety incidents occur in the home hospice setting? 2) How many of these incidents are recognized by the hospice staff and/or the patient or caregiver as a patient safety incident?

Design And Methods: Video-recordings of hospice interdisciplinary team case conferences were reviewed and coded for patient safety incidents.