COMPAS stands for "COmprehensive Multiprofessional Education for improving, distributing and implementing Patient Safety and maintenance of workforce in the EMR".

Project Relevance

“To err is human, to learn from it, divine” (adapted from Alexander Pope). Patient safety is an important and growing concern. Overall, the available evidence suggests that at least 15% of hospital expenditures and activities can be attributed to treating safety failures. Patient safety risks are largely due to human factors, communication and miscommunications in teamwork. Despite extensive expertise, knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals, one in ten hospitalized patients will experience an adverse event, half of which are considered preventable. Despite progress, the impact of current improvement strategies is disappointing, underscoring the need for a framework that embraces patient safety in a holistic approach. Maintaining healthcare personnel in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine and promoting resilience is a highly relevant goal that must be accomplished and should not be limited to crisis situations.

Various factors contribute to the occurrence of patient safety incidents; in addition to active failures (human error), communication and safety culture are emphasized as significant causal factors. Aside, providers are insufficiently trained to deal with changes and healthcare innovations and certainly not trained in the innovation of care processes and systems. This leaves us with a system lacking resilience and agility, making it outpaced continuously by technological innovations and other external impulses.

Patient Safety Challenges in the EMR

In the EMR, proposals to improve patient safety have been developed in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. In order to align the EMR healthcare systems, it is of utmost importance to train professionals in a common framework on sociocultural patient safety aspects and workforce maintenance. Such training should assist in ensuring that cross-border health systems have common frameworks on safety standards and workforce empowerment training for all employees. By joining forces across borders, we will bring current patient safety education to the next level.