BEVA Congress 2023

When unintended or unexpected incidents happen in veterinary practice, it is important to look at why they happened and put systems in place to reduce the chances of them happening again. But there is so much more that practices can learn from incidents that did not necessarily cause harm.

In this session, Pam Mosedale will talk through the steps of looking at non-critical incidents with the aim of improving patient safety, encouraging team members to report a problem, share learning, and improve communication to reduce the chances of errors reoccurring.  

Positive events can also be looked at, bringing the team together to learn and celebrate when things go well.

The main causes of errors in veterinary practices are rarely just human errors. They usually arise from a combination of causes, system failures and lack of communication. 

In this session, Pam Mosedale will look at Human Factors or ergonomics – which is concerned with understanding interactions among humans and other elements of a system. This method uses the application of scientific methods to evaluate tasks, jobs, equipment, and environments to design and introduce robust practice systems to make errors less likely to happen, reducing stress for team members, and improve consistent quality care and patient outcomes.

Pam is QI Clinical lead for RCVS Knowledge and Chair of the RCVS Knowledge Quality Improvement Advisory Board. She was Lead Assessor for the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme until very recently. Pam has worked in first opinion practice for most of her career. She is also an SQP assessor for AMTRA and edits the BSAVA Guide to the Use of Veterinary Medicines and organises the BSAVA Dispensing Course.

Pam has been involved in establishing Quality Improvement resources for the veterinary practice team. She is passionate about QI becoming part of the normal working day for veterinary teams and contributing to a just learning culture in practice.