The 5 most common settings for sentinel events

Sentinel events are an unfortunate and reoccurring issue in healthcare, but becoming aware of their most common settings could help healthcare providers improve prevention.

Hospitals are by far the most common setting in which sentinel events occur. The following list shows the number of sentinel events that occurred in the given settings reported to The Joint Commission from 2004 through 2014.

  • Hospital — 5,456 reported sentinel events
  • Psychiatric hospital — 855
  • Emergency department — 478
  • Psychiatric unit in a general hospital — 443
  • Ambulatory care — 321

Other settings where sentinel events occurred less often in that time span are behavioral health facilities, home care, long-term care facilities and office-based surgeries, among others.

So far this year, there have been 394 sentinel events, according to a recent report published by The Joint Commission. The Joint Commission defines sentinel events as instances that result in unexpected death or injury unrelated to the patient's condition. It is important to note the distinction between sentinel events and medical errors; not all sentinel events occur because of an error, and not all errors result in sentinel events.

Sentinel events include falls, infection-related events, in-patient drug overdose, medication error events, performing procedures on the wrong patient and more.

*Editor's note: The data in The Joint Commission's report is not an epidemiological data set; the reporting of most sentinel events to The Joint Commission is voluntary and represents only a small portion of actual events.

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