Quality improvement priorities for safer out-of-hours palliative care: lessons from a mixed-methods analysis of a national incident-reporting database.
Patients receiving palliative care are often medically complex and may be at increased risk for safety events, especially when cared for outside of routine clinic hours. In this mixed-methods study, researchers analyzed patient safety incident reports regarding patients who received inadequate palliative care during nights and weekends from primary care services in the United Kingdom. Incidents related to medications were common, accounting for 613 out of the 1072 safety events included in the study.