Joint Commission: Updated List of Top 10 Sentinel Events

Last week, The Joint Commission released their newest figures for sentinel event reporting. Their organization has reviewed 6,923 sentinel events since implementation of the sentinel event database in January, 1995.

The top ten list of reported sentinel events, in order of most reported since 1995, are:

• Wrong-site surgery
• Suicide
• Operative/post-operative complication
• Delay in treatment
• Medication error
• Patient fall
• Unintended retention of foreign body
• Assault, rape or homicide
• Perinatal death or loss of function
• Patient death or injury in restraints

For more information, please read the newest edition of The Joint Commission Online.