NQF Updates List of Serious Reportable Events and Identifies Applicable Settings

The National Quality Forum (NQF) has revised its list of serious reportable events and identified 29 such events. NQF’s 2011 update to the list, issued in December 2011, also, for the first time, identifies the settings where the events could occur. NQF lists four possible settings: hospitals, outpatient/office-based surgery centers, ambulatory practice settings/office-based practices, and long-term care/skilled nursing facilities. Of the 29 events, 25 are previously identified serious reportable events that have been updated, and 4 are newly identified events. Those four events are as follows: (1) death or serious injury of a neonate associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy; (2) patient death or serious injury resulting from the irretrievable loss of an irreplaceable biological specimen; (3) death or serious injury resulting from failure to follow up or communicate laboratory, pathology, or radiology results; and (4) death or serious injury of a patient or staff associated with the introduction of a metabolic object into an area for magnetic resonance imaging.