Goals of the Morbidity and Mortality meeting in acute care: A scoping review

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe what is known about understandings of the goals of the Morbidity and Mortality meeting.

Review methods used: The study utilised scoping review methodology.

Data sources: Papers in English presenting empirical data published in academic journals with Morbidity and Mortality meetings as the central concept of study. Included papers presented data about the perception of stakeholders about goals of the Morbidity and Mortality meeting. Medline, Embase, and CINAHL databases were search conducted from earliest record - October 20^th 2021. A manual search of the reference lists of all included papers identified further eligible papers.

Review methods: Data about the location, participant type, and methods/ methodology were extracted and entered onto a database. Content analysis of the results and discussion sections of qualitative papers yielded broad categories of meeting goal. This provided a framework for the organisation of the quantitative findings, which were subsequently extracted and charted under these categories.

Results: Twenty-five papers were included in the review, and six main categories were identified in the qualitative synthesis of findings. These included meeting goals related to quality and safety, education, legal and reputational risk management, professional culture, family/caregivers, and peer support.

Conclusions: There are heterogeneous understandings of key terminologies used to describe Morbidity and Mortality meeting goals, particularly evident within understandings of educational and quality and safety meeting goals. This paper defines and unravels this complexity in a way that researchers and clinicians can define, compare and evaluate their own department's meeting goals.

Keywords: Education; Medical; Patient care team; Patient safety; Quality of health care; Risk management.