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Perspectives

Our Perspectives on Safety section features expert viewpoints on current themes in patient safety, including interviews and written essays published monthly. Annual Perspectives highlight vital and emerging patient safety topics.

Latest Perspectives

This piece discusses the evolution of remote patient monitoring, emergence into use with acute conditions, patient safety considerations, and the continued challenges of telehealth implementation.

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.

All Perspectives (349)

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 74 Results

José A, Morfín, MD, FASN, is a health sciences clinical professor at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. In his professional role, he serves as the Medical Director for Satellite Health Care and as a member of the Medical Advisory Board for Nx Stage Medical. We discussed with him home dialysis and patient safety considerations.

In this PSNet Annual Perspective, we worked with co-authors Dr. Jacqueline C. Stocking, a quality improvement and critical care specialist, and Dr. Christian Sandrock, a patient safety professional and emerging infectious diseases specialist, to provide a look at news and research related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patient safety.

In this PSNet Annual Perspective, we review key findings related to improvement strategies when communicating with patients and different structured communication techniques to improve communication across providers. Lessons learned from innovative approaches explored under COVID-19 that could be considered as usual care resumes are also discussed.

This Perspective differs from the typical Perspective in that it compiles findings and insights into a series of case studies from interviews and written responses from leaders at three different health systems who had to increase their telehealth capacities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jeffrey Shuren, MD, JD is the Director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the Food and Drug Administration. We spoke with him about the role of the Food and Drug Administration in ensuring the safety of medical devices.
This PSNet Perspective discusses how telehealth, regardless of payer (Medicare, private insurance, etc.), is supporting both patient and provider safety during the COVID-19 crisis. Precautions that institutions can take to alleviate safety risks resulting from a rapid expansion of capabilities and use are also discussed.
Joel Willis, DO, PA, MA, MPhiL is a Health Policy Fellow affiliated with the American Board of Family Medicine and the George Washington Medical Faculty Associates. Neal Sikka, MD is an Associate Professor and Attending Physician at George Washington Medical Faculty Associates and the Chief of the Innovative Practice and Telehealth Section of the Department of Emergency Medicine. We discussed with them how telehealth at GW is helping to protect patients and providers during the COVID-19 crisis.

David R. Gruen, MD, MBA, FACR is the Chief Medical Officer, Imaging at IBM Watson Health and is a thought leader and content expert for artificial intelligence in medical imaging. We spoke with him about the role artificial intelligence can play in healthcare diagnostics and the potential for reducing diagnostic errors.

Deborah Woodcock, MS, MBA; Robby Bergstrom |
This piece explores the role medical scribes play in health care, how to implement and evaluate a scribe program, and recommendations to reduce variations in scribe practice.
Dr. Smith is Chief Faculty Practices Officer for UCSF Health and a family medicine physician. Over the past 3–4 years, the health system has implemented a robust program using medical scribes in the outpatient setting. We spoke with her about her experience implementing this program, including the benefits and some of the potential patient safety ramifications.
Dr. Hollnagel is Senior Professor of Patient Safety at the University of Jönköping (Sweden) as well as Visiting Professorial Fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia). We spoke with him about his work studying safety in health care and the differences between designing safety improvements in health care versus other industries.
Dr. Brice is Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of North Carolina. She also serves as the Program Director for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Fellowship and was past-president of the National Association of EMS Physicians. We spoke with her about her experience working in emergency medical systems and safety concerns particular to this field.
Dr. Halamka is the International Healthcare Innovation Professor at Harvard Medical School, Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and an emergency physician. He is widely known as one of the most thoughtful and provocative experts on the subject of health IT. We spoke with him about the HITECH Act and the consequences—anticipated and otherwise—of the digitization of health care.
Rachel J. Stern, MD, and Urmimala Sarkar, MD |
Patient engagement is widely acknowledged as a cornerstone of patient safety. Research in 2018 demonstrates that patient engagement, when done correctly, can help health care systems identify safety hazards, regain trust after they occur, and codesign sustainable solutions.