SafeCare Switzerland - Evaluation of adverse events in Swiss inpatient care

As part of the 2025–2028 Federal Strategy for Healthcare Quality Development, the Federal Quality Commission has commissioned Unisanté to lead the SafeCare Switzerland study. This initiative aims to measure the incidence of healthcare-related adverse events (AEs)—including those related to medication, surgery, and infections. The study's findings will significantly impact patient safety and healthcare quality in Switzerland. Moreover, it is designed for future replication, enabling longitudinal analyses to track improvements in healthcare over time. 

Grounded in a robust, internationally recognized methodology— based on the Harvard Medical Practice Study (Bates DW et al., N Engl J Med. 2023) and the Global Trigger Tool—SafeCare Switzerland is based on a retrospective manual review of a representative sample of inpatient records. It will generate national-level metrics detailing the type, severity, and preventability of AEs occurring in Swiss inpatient care. Unlike existing Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs), incident reports from Critical Incident Reporting System (CIRS), or quality measures derived from automated extraction of electronic medical records, this field-based approach is designed to uncover blind spots that conventional tools may overlook. By identifying previously unreported cases, the study offers a more comprehensive understanding of patient safety and enable international comparisons.