Medical

sentinel event

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sentinel event

1. a type of clinical indicator used to monitor and appraise the quality of care, indluding events that require immediate attention.
2. an adverse event in health care delivery or other service, which either leads to or has potential to lead to catastrophic outcomes (for example, near miss), thereby often mandating initiation of emergency intervention or of preventive measures.
Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012
A term for a ‘headliner’ event that may cause an unexpected or unanticipated outcome, death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof
Examples Suicide while a patient is under 24/7 surveillance; unexpected death of a full-term infant, infant abduction or discharge to the wrong family, rape, haemolytic transfusion reaction due to mismatched blood, surgery on the wrong patient or wrong body part
Segen's Medical Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All rights reserved.

sentinel event

Health policy A term used by the JCAHO for a 'headliner' event that may cause an unexpected or unanticipated outcome or death, and trigger an investigation of a hospital's policies
McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

sen·ti·nel e·vent

(sen'ti-nĕl ĕ-vent')
1. A type of clinical indicator used to monitor and appraise the quality of care, including events that require immediate attention.
2. nursing Any unexpected occurrence resulting in death, serious injury (e.g., physical, psychological, or other), or risk to the patient.
Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions and Nursing © Farlex 2012
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References in periodicals archive
The Joint Commission in its Sentinel Event Alert in April 2018 identified that violence against healthcare workers is grossly underreported.
This Sentinel Event Alert explores this topic and addresses methods to create a culture in which these occurrences are reported so they can be analyzed through systematic efforts to reduce the likelihood that such events will be replicated in the future (TJC, 2018a, b).
In response to The Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert on the safe use of opioids in hospitals, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center initiated surveillance monitoring as the standard for most patients.
Sentinel Event Alert: Inadequate hand-off communication.
Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA): "ANA is pleased that The Joint Commission has issued a Sentinel Event Alert on physical and verbal violence against health care workers.
"We often hear of whanau waiting outside the mortuary, separated from their loved one by walls and a bureaucratic technical process that categorises your loved one as a coroner's case, a Health and Disability Commissioner HDC case, a sentinel event, or a death in police custody," Pakeho said.
NQF's list of 29 events that should never occur includes "unintended retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery or other procedure." (7) Similarly in a 2013 Sentinel Event Alert, the Joint Commission specifically includes vaginal sponge retention as a reportable sentinel event that is a violation of patient safety and quality of care.
The Joint Commission (formerly the JCAHO-Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) recognizing the urgency of the suicide problem, issued a Sentinel Event Alert on February 24, 2016.
The Joint Commission (2011) issued a Sentinel Event Alert on healthcare worker fatigue and patient safety, listing the following impacts of fatigue:
The sentinel event of my life, apart from my decision to follow Christ, was the day I stopped my car at Duke University's East Campus to give several girls a ride to Wright Refuge, an emergency foster care facility, where we would spend the afternoon playing and tutoring the children.
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