More than 1,000 patients in the Irish healthcare system suffer injury, have a narrow escape from harm or die each week from injuries or treatment errors.
New figures show that in the 18 months to the end of June, some 76,648 incidents and near misses were reported to the State Claims Agency. The incidents are reported to the Clinical Indemnity Scheme (CIS) by Health Service Executive (HSE) facilities.
The incidents range from slips, trips and falls - which accounted for almost half of the incidents - to medication and treatment problems.
According to the HSE, most of the reported incidents did not involve patient harm, but were important to help the health body minimise all types of risk.
The HSE said in a statement that it places a "top priority" on patient safety and recently appointed a head of quality and risk to improve safety amnd quality in the health services.
"Sometimes staff members are afraid to report incidents for fear of blame," Edwina Dunne, head of quality and risk for the HSE, said.
"One of our core responsibilities will be to develop within our services a healthy approach to reporting - whereby the better we report, the better we learn, the better we become."
The Irish Patients' Association (IPA) welcomed the new figures on the basis that the information is now being centrally collected and the impact on patients is being recognised.
"These incidents are real experiences for patients and their families . . . some tragically die from their interaction with the health care system. Thankfully others fully recover from their experiences," Stephen McMahon, chairman of the IPA, said.
"When dealing with such cases we would advise the families to request that their case is being reported to the Stars data base maintained by the CIS."