A balanced approach to using organizational patient safety incident data for research

TL;DR

This paper outlines a balanced method for using sensitive patient safety incident data in research while respecting privacy and legal requirements in Canada.

Contribution

The paper introduces new guidelines for ethically using QA-protected patient safety data in a Canadian academic health setting.

Findings

Guidelines were developed to balance privacy and research needs for patient safety data.

Leaders must connect governance, legal, and privacy experts to enable ethical research.

The approach supports learning from incidents while respecting legal and ethical boundaries.

Abstract

Reported patient safety incidents offer high-value perspectives on safety threats but can be an untapped source of learning due to their sensitive nature and the presence of potential data protected under Quality Assurance (QA) legislations. There are no published guidelines for leaders to enable ethical use of data protected under QA legislation in reported patient safety incidents within the Canadian context. Liberating this data requires understanding the appropriate purposes for use, which draws on ethical and privacy-related considerations. We describe the approach followed to balance the duty to protect relevant privacy interests with the moral obligation to conduct research, and the proactive prevention of patient harm at our Canadian multi-site academic health sciences centre. Overall, we developed guidelines and discovered leaders must commit to establishing connections between organizational governance, legal structures, and privacy experts to support research enabling learning from patient safety incidents.

Figures