Nurses play a critical role in ensuring patient safety. This study explored the association between the organization of nursing services and patient safety incidents in rehabilitation units. Findings highlight the key role of appropriate nurse staffing in reducing the incidence of events such as falls and medication errors

This economic analysis estimated the impact of nurse-sensitive adverse events—including pressure ulcers, falls, medication administration errors, pneumonia, and urinary tract infection—for the Canadian health care system. The authors estimate that these adverse events led to more than 1300 excess hospital days per year, and they advocate for more resources for adverse event prevention in order to reduce costs as well as harm.

Accurately detecting safety events remains challenging, and health care organizations are still struggling to determine the incidence of adverse outcomes associated with nursing care. This study used chart reviews to identify the rates of six adverse events considered to be directly related to nursing care: pressure sores, falls, medication administration errors, pneumonia, urinary infections, and inappropriate use of restraints. One in seven hospitalized adults experienced at least one of these adverse events.

Nursing care models in which registered nurses provided a higher proportion of direct care were associated with fewer patient safety incidents.

This cohort study characterizes the types of emergencies that necessitated a medical emergency team evaluation of an inpatient in the radiology department. A case of an ultimately fatal adverse event that occurred while a patient was being transported from an inpatient unit to radiology is discussed in this AHRQ WebM&M commentary.

A considerable amount of attention has been paid to the issue of physician work hours and patient safety, thanks in part to regulations limiting duty hours for resident physicians. Fatigue has also been demonstrated to be a risk factor for errors among nurses, particularly when nurses work overtime or extended duration shifts. In this analysis, the authors found that among nurses, working voluntary overtime or working more than 40 hours per week were strongly correlated with an increase in self-reported errors, particularly needlestick injuries and medication errors. While legislative efforts have focused on restricting mandatory overtime for nurses, these results raise concern that the widespread practice of taking voluntary overtime shifts could negatively affect patient safety.

Increased nurse staffing on postoperative general wards—but not in the intensive care unit—was associated with reduced mortality for cardiac surgery patients.

… and improve nurse retention and satisfaction. … Aiken LH, Clarke SP, Sloane DM, Sochalski J, Silber JH. Hospital nurse …

… the ultimate goal of improving patient care. … Aiken LH, Clarke SP, Cheung RB, Sloane DM, Silber JH. Educational …