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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
Ellen Deutsch, MD, MS, FACS, FAAP, FSSH, CPPS is a Medical Officer in the Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Dr. Deutsch is a pediatric otolaryngologist and has vast experience in... Read More
This piece discusses resilient healthcare and the Safety-I and Safety-II approaches to patient safety.
We spoke to Dr. Michelle Schreiber about measuring patient safety, the CMS National Quality Strategy, and the future of measurement. Michelle Schreiber, MD, is the Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality and the Director of... Read More
This collaborative piece with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services discusses the current state of patient safety measurement, advancements in measuring patient safety, and explores future directions.
Human factors engineering or ergonomics (HFE) is a scientific discipline broadly focused on interactions among humans and other elements of a system. The International Ergonomics Association defines HFE as “the scientific discipline concerned with... Read More
Dr. Pascale Carayon, PhD, is a professor emerita in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the founding director of the Wisconsin Institute for Healthcare Systems Engineering (WIHSE). Dr. Nicole Werner, PhD, is an associate... Read More
All Perspectives (345)
This piece discusses patient safety challenges that arose as a result of the unique care circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly at the height of the pandemic in 2020.
Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs) are organizations dedicated to improving patient safety and healthcare quality that serve to collect and analyze data voluntarily reported by healthcare providers to promote learning. Federal confidentiality and privilege protections apply to certain information (defined as “patient safety work product”) developed when a healthcare provider works with a federally listed PSO under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 and its implementing regulation. AHRQ is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the PSO listing process. Based on their presentations at an AHRQ annual meeting, we spoke with representatives from two PSOs, Poonam Sharma, MD, MPH, the Senior Clinical Data Analyst at Atrium Health, and Rhonda Dickman, MSN, RN, CPHQ, the Director of the Tennessee Hospital Association PSO about how the unique circumstances surrounding care during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted patient safety risks in both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients.
Anjali Joseph, PhD, EDAC, is a Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System Endowed Chair in Architecture and Health Design. Molly M. Scanlon, PhD, FAIA, FACHA, is the Director at Phigenics, LLC. We spoke with them about how healthcare built environments have been temporarily modified during the COVID-19 pandemic and what learnings may be used moving forward.
This piece discusses areas where the healthcare built environment may contribute to the risk of COVID-19 transmission, mitigating strategies, and how the pandemic may impact the built environment moving forward.
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 piece discusses the challenges faced by long-term care facilities in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on visitor restrictions, staffing turnover, and infection prevention and control.
Charles A Crecelius, MD, PhD CMD, is the Medical Director for post-acute care at BJC Medical Group and the Project Medical Director for the Missouri Quality Initiative (MOQI). Lori L Popejoy, PhD, RN, FAAN is an Associate Dean for Innovation and Partnerships and an Associate Professor at the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing. We discussed with them the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in long-term care facilities.
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.
