1. Ambulatory care facilities accounted for a cumulative 4 percent of sentinel event settings from 2005 to 2017, while hospitals accounted for 67 percent.
2. Unintended retention of a foreign body was the most common adverse event in 2017, followed by falls and wrong patient, wrong site, wrong procedure events. Suicide was the fourth most common sentinel event and delay in treatment was the fifth.
3. The number of sentinel events reported increased slightly over the past decade, from 748 in 2007 to 805 in 2017.
4. About 87 percent of the adverse events reported in 2017 were self-reported by accredited healthcare organizations. This marks a 27 percent increase in voluntary reports since 2007.
More articles on accreditation:
EVP customer relations retiring from The Joint Commission — 3 notes
The Joint Commission clarifies record retention requirements — 4 clarifications
The Joint Commission recommends periodic risk assessments for SSI surveillance — 5 things to know
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