[Culture of safety and clinical risk management].

An error-resistant safety culture can only be achieved through proactive clinical risk management. In April 2019 the Federal Joint Committee once again increased the pressure on hospitals by means of the Quality Promotion and Enforcement Directive (QFD Directive) to take measures within the framework of clinical risk management in order to reduce the error and harm rate and therefore to significantly improve patient safety. In the long term this can only be achieved by positively influencing the safety culture and thus the attitudes and motives of all employees. Clinical risk management should focus on the prevention of so-called sentinel events on the one hand and on the reduction of frequent and avoidable complications on the other hand. This not only improves patient safety but also protects employees from negative consequences. Effective clinical risk management always follows a systemic approach, the 10 fields of action of which are discussed in this article. Large meta-analyses have also confirmed the substantial economic benefit of a clinical risk management.