Broadening the patient safety agenda to include safety in long-term care.

The Canadian Patient Safety Institute, Capital Health (Edmonton) and CapitalCare (Edmonton) have jointly identified a gap in our current understanding of safety in Canadian healthcare settings: unlike the acute care setting, there has been little written about improving safety and adverse event prevention in Canadian long-term care (LTC) settings. More recently, Canadian researchers have increased the research capacity regarding common safety issues in the areas of improving medication safety (Rochon et al. 2005, 2006), falls (Gallagher et al. 2005; Krueger et al. 2001), pressure ulcers (Woodbury and Houghton 2004) and nosocomial infections (Loeb et al. 1999, 2001, 2003). However, these adverse events continue to be a daily challenge for LTC providers, and the research is still lacking in how to best minimize their occurrence. To explore and address the need for new knowledge in this field, 14 key informants were interviewed and a background paper (Wagner and Rust 2007) was produced that informed an invitational round-table meeting held in Edmonton, Alberta, on May 31, 2007. This coordinated and collaborative effort is a critical step toward identifying the key issues and research priorities for resident safety in Canadian LTC settings. The highlights of the key-informant interviews follow.