Hospitals must balance costs associated with pharmacist medication reconciliation (e.g., salary) with prevented harm and cost avoidance (e.g., unreimbursed expenses resulting from medication error). This study found an estimate cost avoidance of $47,000 - $231,000 during one month in one hospital. The highest-risk, highest-cost classes were insulin, antithrombotics, and opioids. In resource-limited environments, focusing on the highest-cost classes could avoid significant cost and patient harm.

Characteristics inherent to the emergency department (ED), such as overcrowding and unfamiliar patients, make it susceptible to errors. This article describes a novel process for identification of ED errors by adding the question, "Would you have done something differently?" to the chart review process. Adding this question and requiring a detailed explanation of what they would have done differently allowed for differentiation between a true medical error and a judgment call that coincides with an adverse event. Near misses, adverse events, and adverse events attributable to error were significantly higher when reviewers would have done something differently.

Potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) are a known contributor to patient harm in older adults. In contrast to most studies of PIM in patients with comorbid conditions or residing in hospitals or nursing homes, this study evaluated the impact of PIM use in community-dwelling older adults without significant disability. Participants with at least one PIM were at increased risk of physical disability and hospitalization over the study period (8 years) than those not taking any PIM. However, both groups had similar rates of death.

Implementation of or upgrades to new electronic health records (EHR) is a complex process which sometimes results in unforeseen negative consequences. This study examines hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) and care bundle compliance rates at 27 pediatric hospitals before, during, and after implementation or upgrade of EHR systems. Contrary to previous studies, no significant differences were found in either HAC or bundle compliance rates.

… care unit (ICU). In this survey of 266 clinicians within a large pediatric healthcare system, 42% reported …

Medication administration is a complex process and is a common source of preventable patient harm. This retrospective chart review of 145 surgical patients over a two-month period found that 98.6% of cases involved a potential medication error, most frequently due to potential dose omissions and involving vasopressors, opioids, or neuromuscular blockers.

Diagnostic errors remain a major healthcare concern. This study was a retrospective record review of 882 pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) patients to identify diagnostic errors using the Revised Safer Dx tool. Diagnostic errors were found in 13 (1.5%) patients, most commonly associated with atypical presentation and diagnostic uncertainty at admission.

Hospital mergers may improve some safety outcomes but also present challenges. This commentary describes how a third-party proactive risk assessment, ideally prior to the merger, can identify strengths and weaknesses of the organizations' safety cultures. The article describes an insurer-directed assessment, but other resources are also available, such as from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement National Action Plan.

Patient safety advocates have called for cognitive testing of aging clinicians and some health systems have attempted instituting such policies as part of their recredentialing program. This commentary calls for state medical boards to adopt cognitive testing as part of the recredentialling process within the confines of legal boundaries.

Despite widespread implementation of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) for medication ordering, some orders may be submitted wholly or in part using the free-text field. This study analyzed CPOE orders that included medication information in the free text field. High-risk medications (e.g., insulin, heparin) were frequently mentioned and the most common expected action was to discontinue. Despite using the same CPOE software, there were wide variations between the six included hospitals in the rates of orders in free text and the types of medications mentioned.

The Partnership for Patients (P4P) program launched hospital engagement networks (HEN) in 2011 to reduce hospital-acquired harms. This study reports on the outcomes of eight conditions from one HEN, Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS). While the results do show a reduction in harms, the authors state earlier claims of improvement may have been overstated due to failure to not adjust for secular improvements. The co-director of Partnership for Patients, Dr. Paul McGann, was interviewed in 2016 for a PSNet perspective.

Human factors play an important role in contributing to and preventing adverse events. This study found that integrating human factors into a new root cause analysis process led to an increase in the number of strong interventions implemented after adverse events.

Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) are a target of safety improvement initiatives, as they are common and harmful. This guideline provides an update on recommended steps for organizations to support the implementation of CLASBI reduction efforts.

Diagnostic errors can be identified by measuring concordance of initial and final diagnosis, for instance admission and discharge diagnoses. In this study, researchers developed and tested an automated trigger system to determine concordance between pairs of diagnoses. In comparison to the reference standard (concordance determined by experts) the automated system performance was excellent.

Stewardship interventions seek to optimize use of healthcare services, such as diagnostic tests or antibiotics. This article reports findings from a 14-site multidisciplinary collaborative evaluating pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) blood culture practices before and after implementation of a diagnostic stewardship intervention. Researchers found that rates of blood cultures, broad-spectrum antibiotic use, and central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) were reduced postintervention.

Analyzing reported errors and adverse events can help identify areas of concern needing improvement. Errors and/or adverse events occurring in one emergency department (ED) were classified into one of three groups (attributed to residents only, attendings only, or both), and into five further categories of event types (systems, documentation, diagnostic, procedural, and treatment).  Most errors were attributed to both residents and attendings, and treatment errors were the most common error type.

… are considered . This study explored the effect of a prompt to generate alternative diagnoses versus a differential diagnosis checklist on diagnostic accuracy … the checklist improved diagnostic accuracy compared to a prompt, but only if the checklist included the correct …