Email Updates
February 1, 2023 Weekly Issue
PSNet highlights the latest patient safety literature, news, and expert commentary, including Weekly Updates, WebM&M, and Perspectives on Safety. The current issue highlights what's new this week in patient safety literature, news, conferences, reports, and more. Past issues of the PSNet Weekly Update are available to browse. WebM&M presents current and past monthly issues of Cases & Commentaries and Perspectives on Safety.
This Week’s Featured Articles
Dykes PC, Curtin-Bowen M, Lipsitz S, et al. JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4:e225125.
Patient falls are associated with poorer clinical outcomes, and increased costs to the health system. This study describes the economic costs of implementing the Fall Tailoring Interventions for Patient Safety (Fall TIPS) Program in eight American hospitals. Results show the Fall TIPS program reduced falls by 19%, avoiding over $14,000 of costs per 1,000 patient days.
Hawkins SF, Morse JM. Glob Qual Nurs Res. 2022;9:233339362211317.
Medication administration is a complex set of tasks completed many times per day for hospitalized patients. This study captures the turbulence of nursing work, the nursing environment, and how that impacts patient safety. The results suggest organizations should re-evaluate current attempts at improving medication administration safety and include nurses in identifying new solutions.
Seidelman JL, Mantyh CR, Anderson DJ. JAMA. 2023;329:244-252.
Surgical site infections (SSIs) remain a significant cause of preventable post-operative morbidity and mortality. This narrative review summarizes modifiable and nonmodifiable patient-related factors. It also evaluates modifiable operation-related factors associated with surgical site infections, and highlights six pre-, intra-, and postoperative strategies to reduce surgical site infections, including use of the WHO surgical safety checklist.
Tawfik DS, Adair KC, Palassof S, et al. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2023;49:156-165.
Leadership across all levels of a health system plays an important role in patient safety. In this study, researchers administered the Safety, Communication, Operational, Reliability, and Engagement (SCORE) survey to 31 Midwestern hospitals to evaluate how leadership behaviors influenced burnout, safety culture, and engagement. Findings indicate that local leadership behaviors are strongly associated with healthcare worker burnout, safety climate, teamwork climate, workload, and intentions to leave the job.
Dykes PC, Curtin-Bowen M, Lipsitz S, et al. JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4:e225125.
Patient falls are associated with poorer clinical outcomes, and increased costs to the health system. This study describes the economic costs of implementing the Fall Tailoring Interventions for Patient Safety (Fall TIPS) Program in eight American hospitals. Results show the Fall TIPS program reduced falls by 19%, avoiding over $14,000 of costs per 1,000 patient days.
Van der Voorden M, Ahaus K, Franx A. BMJ Open. 2023;13:e063175.
Patient engagement in healthcare is widely encouraged, but findings from some studies suggest that patient participation can have negative effects. This qualitative study with 16 patients and obstetric healthcare professionals examined the negative effects of patient participation in healthcare. Researchers identified four types of negative consequences from patient participation in safety – decreases in patient confidence, eroding of the patient-professional relationship, unwanted increases in patient responsibility, and excess time spent by professionals on the patient.
Corby S, Ash JS, Florig ST, et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2022;Epub Nov 16.
Medical scribes are increasingly being utilized to reduce the time burden on clinicians for electronic health record (EHR) documentation. In this secondary analysis, researchers identified three themes for safe use of medical scribes: communication aspects, teamwork efforts, and provider characteristics.
Chew MM, Rivas S, Chesser M, et al. J Patient Saf. 2023;19:23-28.
Provision of enteral nutrition (EN) is a specialized process requiring careful interdisciplinary teamwork. After discovering significant issues with ordering, administration, and documentation of EN, this health system updated its workflows to improve safety. EN therapies were added to the electronic medication administration record (MAR) and the barcoding system was updated. After one year, all EN orders were barcode scanned and nearly all were documented as given or included a reason why they were not given.
Tawfik DS, Adair KC, Palassof S, et al. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2023;49:156-165.
Leadership across all levels of a health system plays an important role in patient safety. In this study, researchers administered the Safety, Communication, Operational, Reliability, and Engagement (SCORE) survey to 31 Midwestern hospitals to evaluate how leadership behaviors influenced burnout, safety culture, and engagement. Findings indicate that local leadership behaviors are strongly associated with healthcare worker burnout, safety climate, teamwork climate, workload, and intentions to leave the job.
Weaver SH, de Cordova PB, Ravichandran A, et al. J Nurs Care Qual. 2022;Epub Dec 7.
Nurse work environment has been linked to perceived safety culture and job satisfaction. This cross-sectional survey of licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in New Jersey found lower job satisfaction and perceived patient safety culture among LPNs working in nursing homes compared to LPNs working in other settings.
Reyes AM, Royan R, Feinglass J, et al. JAMA Surg. 2023;Epub Jan 18.
Delays in diagnosis and treatment can lead to poor outcomes. In this population-based retrospective longitudinal study using inpatient and emergency department discharge data from four states, researchers found that non-Hispanic Black patients were at higher risk for delayed diagnosis of appendicitis compared to White patients. This increased risk for delayed diagnosis translated into higher risks for postoperative 30-day readmission rates. The researchers found that this risk was mitigated when Black patients received care at hospitals serving a more diverse patient population.
Krombach JW, Zürcher C, Simon SG, et al. Anaesth Crit Care Pain Med. 2022;42:101186.
Checklists have been highlighted as a cognitive aid to decrease omissions of care in surgery and other routine and critical events. This study evaluated a pre- and post-anesthesia induction checklist to determine the omission rate and impact on patient safety. Use of the checklist reduced omission rates significantly during both pre- and post-induction periods. However omission remained high at 32% and 40%, respectively and use of the checklists remained low.
Bushuven S, Trifunovic-Koenig M, Bentele M, et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19:16016.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) who are involved in serious adverse events may feel traumatized by those events, and many organizations have implemented “second victim” training programs to support their workers. This study sought to understand HCWs’ motivations to attend such trainings and a potential association with overconfidence. Understanding the association may help organizations develop effective training programs and increase motivation to attend them.
Abrams R, Conolly A, Rowland E, et al. J Adv Nurs. 2023;Epub Jan 16.
Speaking up about safety concerns is an important component of safety culture. In this study, nurses in a variety of fields shared their experiences with speaking up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three themes emerged: the ability to speak up or not, anticipated consequences of speaking up, and responses, or lack thereof, from managers.
Kwon CS, Duzyj C. Am J Perinatol. 2022;Epub Dec 30.
Effective teamwork is critical for patient safety and numerous training strategies exist for improving team dynamics. The labor and delivery unit of an American hospital offered Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) training to all physicians and nurses on the ward, and assessed perceptions of teamwork and safety both before and six months after training. Results were mixed, and physician and nurse perceptions of safety significantly differed.
Salmon PM, King B, Hulme A, et al. Safety Sci. 2022;159:106003.
Organizations are encouraged to proactively identify patient safety risks and learn from failures. This article describes validity testing of systems-thinking risk assessment (Net-HARMS) to identify risks associated with patient medication administration and an accident analysis method (AcciMap) to analyze a medication administration error.
Hawkins SF, Morse JM. Glob Qual Nurs Res. 2022;9:233339362211317.
Medication administration is a complex set of tasks completed many times per day for hospitalized patients. This study captures the turbulence of nursing work, the nursing environment, and how that impacts patient safety. The results suggest organizations should re-evaluate current attempts at improving medication administration safety and include nurses in identifying new solutions.
Wells JM, Walker VP. Health Promot Pract. 2023:152483992211451.
Addressing racism in healthcare is a patient safety priority. This article discusses how an active presence by hospital threat management systems (e.g., hospital-employed security, local law enforcement personnel) in pediatric emergency departments (EDs) can help ensure patient safety but also contributes to unsafe care due to racial stereotypes and threat perception among minority patients and caregivers. The authors outline patient-centered strategies at the individual-, intra-organizational-, and extra-organizational levels for responding to disruptive and violent events.
Classen DC, Longhurst CA, Thomas EJ. NPJ Digit Med. 2023;6:2.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in an increasing range of health care situations to address a variety of care needs. This commentary examines the impact of AI on patient safety, in diagnosis, and on the limitations of AI that affect reliability.
Organizational Policy/Guidelines
Healy A, Davidson C, Allbert J, et al. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2023;228:b8-b17.
The demand for, and acceptance of, telemedicine solutions to provide services has grown substantially in recent years as safety profiles for the services are being defined. This guideline examines its use in pregnancy-related care, discusses the benefits and suggests actions to ensure patient safety during these encounters such as development of appropriate metrics and methods for vital-sign monitoring.
Seidelman JL, Mantyh CR, Anderson DJ. JAMA. 2023;329:244-252.
Surgical site infections (SSIs) remain a significant cause of preventable post-operative morbidity and mortality. This narrative review summarizes modifiable and nonmodifiable patient-related factors. It also evaluates modifiable operation-related factors associated with surgical site infections, and highlights six pre-, intra-, and postoperative strategies to reduce surgical site infections, including use of the WHO surgical safety checklist.
Moon SEJ, Hogden A, Eljiz K. BMJ Open Qual. 2022;11:e002057.
Health systems often implement innovative quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, but the longevity and sustainability of these initiatives remains a challenge. This scoping review explored the factors which enable and hinder sustainability of hospital-wide quality improvement (QI) initiatives. Three overarching themes were identified – the role of (1) people, including the organizational and leadership teams, as well as frontline staff implementing the QI initiatives, (2) processes, such as local and organizational integration and planning for sustainability, and (3) the organizational environment such as resources, infrastructure, and hospital culture.
No results.
Newspaper/Magazine Article
Goldstein J. New York Times. January 23, 2023.
Active errors are evident when they occur, yet systemic weaknesses, if not addressed, allow them to repeat. This story examines poor epidural methods of one clinician that coincided with lack of organizational practitioner monitoring, unequitable maternal care for black women and clinician COVID fatigue to contribute to patient death.
Newspaper/Magazine Article
ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. January 12, 2023;28(1):1-4.
The patient safety movement has raised awareness of the presence of multiple factors that align to result in patient harm, yet implementing processes to fully examine and change practice from that perspective is challenged. This article discusses this situation and provides recommendations to orient improvement efforts toward deeper investigation methods to identify latent contributors to care failure.
Grimm CA. Washington DC: Office of the Inspector General; Nov 2022. Report no. OEI-07-20-00500.
Misdiagnosis can result in inappropriate medication use. This report examined the overuse of antipsychotics in nursing homes and resident harms. These recommendations from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General include heightened evaluation and oversight of medication use and better documentation of diagnosis with medication orders as avenues for improvement.
Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Joint Commission and National Quality Forum: January 23, 2023.
The annual Eisenberg Award recognizes leaders and organizations who have made substantial contributions toward patient safety and quality improvement. The 2022 honorees are Jason S. Adelman, MD, MS, North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) and Parkland Health, Dallas County, Texas. The awards will be presented at the National Quality Forum's annual conference on February 20, 2023, in Washington, DC.
This Month’s WebM&Ms
WebM&M Cases
Dahlia Zuidema, PharmD, Berit Bagley, MSN, and Charity L Tan MSN |
This WebM&M highlights two cases of hospital-acquired diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in patients with type 1 diabetes. The commentary discusses the role of the inpatient glycemic team to assist with diabetes management, the importance of medication reconciliation in the emergency department (ED) for high-risk patients on insulin, and strategies to empower patients and caregivers to speak up about medication safety.
WebM&M Cases
Elizabeth Partridge, MD, MPH, Daniel Dodson, MD, MS, Mary Reilly, MHA, BSN, RN, CIC and Stuart H. Cohen, MD |
A 5-day old male infant was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and underwent surgery to correct a congenital heart defect. The patient’s postoperative course was complicated Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia and other problems, requiring venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) and subsequent cardiac procedures. During these subsequent procedures, he was found to have florid mediastinitis including multiple pockets of purulent material; the chest tissue culture collected during surgery demonstrated Aspergillus fumigatus. The patient returned to PICU with an open chest to optimize antibacterial and antifungal therapies for a hospital-acquired invasive fungal infection in an immunocompetent infant. The commentary discusses environmental factors that contribute to postoperative infections and approaches to mitigating environmental infectious disease hazards in perioperative spaces.
WebM&M Cases
Spotlight Case
Claire E. Graves, MD and Maggie A. Kuhn, MD, MAS |
These cases describe the rare but dangerous complication of hematoma following neck surgery. The first case involves a patient with a history of spinal stenosis who was admitted for elective cervical discectomy and cervical disc arthroplasty who went into cardiopulmonary arrest three days post-discharge and could not be intubated due to excessive airway swelling and could not be resuscitated. Autopsy revealed a large hematoma at the operative site, causing compression of the upper airway, which was the suspected cause of respiratory and cardiac arrest. In the second case, the patient underwent an uncomplicated elective thyroid lobectomy but developed increased neck pain and swelling the next day. A large hematoma was identified, and the patient was taken emergently to the operating room for evacuation. The commentary discusses risk factors for postoperative cervical hematomas, the importance of prompt identification and evaluation of cervical hematomas in the early postoperative period, and approaches for managing postoperative cervical hematomas.
This Month’s Perspectives
Interview
Connor Wesley, RN, BSN, is a registered nurse in Tacoma, WA. In addition to his role as the Assistant Nurse Manager of the Emergency Department at MultiCare Allenmore Hospital, Connor lectures locally and nationally on providing healthcare to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ+) community. We interviewed Connor to discuss patient safety and the LGBTQ+ community.
Perspective
This piece discusses patient safety concerns among members of the LGBTQ+ community which may inhibit access to needed healthcare and potential ways to provide patient-centered care and mitigate the risk of adverse events.
Stay Updated!
PSNet highlights the latest patient safety literature, news, and expert commentary, including Weekly Updates, WebM&M, and Perspectives on Safety. Sign up today to get weekly and monthly updates via emails!
