gms | German Medical Science

Background: Short Patient Information Leaflets (SPILs) provide comprehensive information on important medical conditions and are designed to be handed out by physicians to patients during consultations. Generally derived from our lay versions of the National Disease Management Guidelines, they sum up latest scientific findings.

Context: To address important patient safety issues a new edition of the SPILs was created, starting with a focus on medication safety. There was no evidence-based guideline available. Hence, linking patient safety with evidenced-based patient information, presented a considerable challenge.

Description: A systematic literature search on medication safety was conducted in PubMed and the Cochrane library (2005–2011) and complemented by a hand-search. 19 relevant publications were found. In an attempt to attract patients' attention a real case report from a German hospital, retrieved from the Critical Incident Reporting System 'Network Berlin' (www.cirs-berlin.de), was additionally introduced in the leaflet. Finally, the SPIL contained a short description of the case, barriers to taking medicines, strategies on how to administer medicines correctly and safely, medical aids and appliances for the correct administration of medicines. Experts on patient safety, physicians, a pharmacist as well as a multimorbid patient were then given the opportunity to comment on the leaflet. This led to minor changes in the leaflet.

Lessons: Patients can make important contributions to the safety of their medication therapy. The present leaflet might serve as a successful example on how to balance experience and evidence-based medicine in order to get patients involved in the safety process.