Is incident reporting still an effective tool for improving the quality and safety of care? The experience of an Italian local health authority.

Incident Reporting Systems are in use worldwide. They are designed to improve patient care by detecting and analyzing critical and adverse patient events and by taking corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence. Patient safety, seen as the degree to which the risk of an intervention and risk in the care environment are reduced, is becoming a crucial health care issue in Italy. However, no overview yet exists of the reported incidents characteristics, their communication within institutions, or actions taken either to correct them or to prevent their recurrence. Therefore, the objectives of this study are the following: to describe the five-year number of reports received of the ASL Roma 2; type of event reported; event classification; discipline/area of ​​assistance involved; location where the event occurred; outcome of the event as well as the categories of contributing factors detected and the frequency of action plans.