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Innovations

The PSNet Innovations page highlights pioneering advances that can improve patient safety. PSNet innovations are defined as “new or updated interventions, approaches, systems, tools, policies, organizational structures or business models implemented to improve or enhance quality of care and reduce harm.” The PSNet Innovations page includes innovations developed, tested, and sustained within the past five years, updates to existing innovations that were featured in AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange, as well as “emerging innovations,” which are new, novel approaches to patient safety improvement recently published in the peer-reviewed literature.

Read more about how PSNet Innovations can be used.

PSNet innovations can be used to:

  • Identify new tactics, strategies, tools, or approaches that could be implemented by a broader audience
  • Learn about recent innovations with promising early results
  • Consider conditions that support the successful implementation or sustainment of an innovation or an emerging innovation

Future posted innovations will be curated by the PSNet team based on their impact on the provision of health care.

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All Innovations (51)

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Displaying 41 - 51 of 51 Results

Project Nurture provides patients with substance use disorder (SUD) prenatal care, inpatient maternity care, postpartum care, and infant pediatric care. Women enrolled in the program receive Level 1 addiction treatment (i.e., outpatient services) from an integrated care team that includes MDs, nurse practitioners, doulas, certified recovery mentors, certified alcohol and drug counselors, and social workers and other mental health professionals. If indicated, they can also receive medication-assisted treatment (MAT) using methadone or buprenorphine.

Trauma staff at The Alfred Hospital use a computerized decision support system to guide the care of patients during the critical first 60 minutes of resuscitation. Known as the Trauma Reception and Resuscitation System (TR&R®), this program generates prompts based on more than 40 algorithms and real-time clinical data, including patient vital signs and information entered by a trauma nurse. Displayed on a large overhead monitor, these prompts are used by clinicians to direct the care of trauma patients and to facilitate documentation and communication.

The team at Geisinger sought to develop an outpatient addiction medicine specialty program that incorporated medication-assisted treatment (MAT), peer support, and connection to community counseling services and uses data-driven insights to monitor and improve patient outcomes. As a result of this program, they have been able to reduce all-cause mortality among these patients, increase patient engagement in substance use disorder treatment, and have seen a reduction in the prescription quantities of controlled substances.

Nudges are a change in the way choices are presented or information is framed that can have a large, but predictable, impact on medical decision-making, for both patients and providers without actually restricting individual choice. The Nudge Unit at Penn Medicine focuses on a range of different care improvement projects, including safety initiatives, with this framework in mind that are designed to improve workflow, support evidence-based decision-making, and create sustained changes in patient engagement and daily behaviors.1

Multidisciplinary teams at the University of Kansas Hospital sought to improve patient outcomes from obstetric emergencies by rehearsing team responses in simulations to emergent situations that can occur during a delivery. Using the PRactical Obstetric MultiProfessional Training (or PROMPT) curriculum, teams rehearsed flexible emergency care scenarios in order to achieve an optimal response, and then used this experience to improve their response to a real emergency.

Social worker/nurse practitioner teams collaborate with a larger interdisciplinary team and primary care physicians to develop and implement individualized care plans for seniors and other high-risk patients. The social worker/nurse practitioner team also proactively manages and coordinates the patient's care on an ongoing basis through regular telephone and in-person contact with both patients and providers.

Under a program known as the Care Transitions Intervention ®, a Transitions Coach ® encourages patients who are transferring from either a hospital or a short-term skilled nursing facility stay to home to assert a more active role in their self-care. The program has consistently reduced 30-day hospital readmissions and costs as well as 180-day hospital readmissions, even in heavily penetrated Medicare Advantage markets in which the reduction of hospital use has been an explicit focus for many years.

Formerly known as the Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System (ANGELS), the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) High-Risk Pregnancy Program links clinicians and patients across the state with UAMS, where the vast majority of the state's high-risk pregnancy services, maternal-fetal medicine specialists, and prenatal genetic counselors are located.

The Support and Services at Home (SASH®) program provides onsite assistance to help senior citizens (and other Medicare beneficiaries) remain in their homes as they age. Using evidence-based practices, a multidisciplinary, onsite team conducts an initial health assessment, creates an individualized care plan based on each participant’s self-identified goals, provides onsite nursing and care coordination with local partners, and schedules community activities to support health and wellness.

Children's Hospital Colorado requires clinicians in all inpatient and outpatient facilities to confirm any order entered into its computerized order entry system through a popup verification screen that includes a prominent photograph of the patient, along with other key information such as age and gender. The goal is to capture the clinician's attention and force him or her to verify that the order has been entered into the correct patient's chart.