Adverse event reporting and patient safety at a University Hospital: Mapping, correlating and associating events for a data-based patient risk management.

Background: Reporting adverse events (AE) with a bearing on patient safety is fundamentally important to the identification and mitigation of potential clinical risks.

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the AE reporting systems adopted at a university hospital for the purpose of enhancing the learning potential afforded by these systems.

Research Design: Retrospective cohort study

Methods: Data were collected from different information flows (reports of incidents and falls, patients' claims and complaints, and cases of hospital-acquired infection [HAI]) at an university hospital.