PATIENT SAFETY IN CLINICAL UNCERTAINTY SCENARIOS: MULTIPROFESSIONAL STRATEGIES FOR SAFE DECISION-MAKING IN COMPLEX HEALTHCARE SETTINGS

Abstract

Patient safety in complex healthcare environments represents one of the main challenges faced by contemporary health systems, especially in scenarios marked by clinical uncertainty, high care demand, and the continuous need for rapid decision-making. This study aimed to analyze multiprofessional strategies related to safe decision-making in contexts of clinical uncertainty, discussing the main factors involved in preventing adverse events and strengthening patient safety. This is a qualitative study developed through an integrative literature review, including national and international studies related to patient safety, interprofessional communication, decision fatigue, and healthcare risk management. The findings demonstrated that patient safety depends on multiple interconnected factors, including effective communication among teams, multiprofessional integration, organizational culture, and adequate working conditions. Cognitive overload, fatigue, and communication failures were also identified as significant factors compromising the quality of clinical decisions, especially in highly complex healthcare settings. Furthermore, strategies such as clinical protocols, checklists, multiprofessional rounds, and decision-support tools showed positive impacts on reducing adverse events and improving healthcare quality. It is concluded that safe decision-making should not be understood as an exclusively individual responsibility, but rather as the result of collective processes built by multiprofessional teams working within organizational environments prepared to deal with the complexity of healthcare delivery.