Teamwork is an essential component of ensuring high quality, safe healthcare. This article describes findings from the Redesigning SystEms to Improve Teamwork and Quality for Hospitalized Patients (RESET) study, which evaluated the impact of complementary interventions to redesign unit-based care (unit-based physician teams, nurse-physician co-leadership, interprofessional rounds, performance reports, patient engagement) on interprofessional teamwork and patient outcomes. Findings demonstrate improved teamwork climate scores among nurses (but not physicians), but researchers did not identify a significant impact on patient outcomes.

Nursing team dynamics can influence safety culture and willingness so speak up about errors and safety concerns. This survey of over 650 nurses and nurse managers underscored the importance of leader inclusiveness, safety climate, and psychological safety in cultivating speaking up behaviors among nursing team members.

Patients who experience life-changing adverse events due to errors, and their families, typically want disclosure of the error and appropriate accountability. This systematic review identified 41 studies exploring the views of those affected by adverse events. Four themes were identified: transparency, person-centeredness, trustworthiness, and restorative justice. Applying these themes to investigations may result in ensuring the process and outcomes are experienced as "fair" to those impacted.

Delayed diagnosis and treatment of cancer is a serious patient safety problem. This retrospective study including 711 patients diagnosed with lung cancer used electronic health records and natural language processing (NLP) to identify relevant signs and symptoms in the two years prior to their cancer diagnosis. Researchers found that NLP can identify signs and symptoms associated with lung cancer over a year prior to diagnosis.

After-hours and weekend admissions to the hospital and intensive care units (ICU) have been linked to poor outcomes. This retrospective analysis compared outcomes among adult patients with daytime versus nighttime ICU admissions at one large Canadian medical center in between 2011 and 2015. Researchers found that overall mortality, but not ICU mortality, was higher among daytime admissions.

A systematic review in early 2022 revealed healthcare worker strikes may negatively impact patient safety but also result in long-term benefits. This review by the same authors explores the impact of strikes on in-hospital and population mortality. None of the 11 studies examining in-hospital mortality reported a significant difference between mortality during the strike compared to the control period. Similarly, there was no difference in population mortality.

Emergency surgery carries an increased risk of death compared to elective surgery. This study used a regional electronic health record (EHR) to examine clinical risk factors associated with mortality in emergency general surgery. Risk factors for both inpatient and 1-year mortality included older age, underweight, neutropenia, and elevated lactate.

Patient and family engagement is essential for safe healthcare. This single-site study found that while most clinicians perceived that patients and families are able to recognize clinical deterioration, clinicians expressed less favorable perceptions towards escalation processes when patients or families have concerns about clinical deterioration.

When faced with a patient safety concern, staff need to decide whether to speak up or remain silent. Leaders play a crucial role in addressing contextual factors behind employees’ decisions to remain silent. This article offers support for leaders to create a culture of psychological safety and encourage speaking up behaviors.

… J Intensive Care Med … Adverse events (AE) may lead to poor … with adverse events in intensive care unit patients. J Intensive Care Med. Epub 2022 Mar 3. …

… J Patient Saf Risk Manage … Healthcare systems have … skills through harm in healthcare response training. J Patient Saf Risk Manage. 2021;26(6):251-260. …

The care of child abuse victims is affected by resource, racial and infrastructure challenges. This commentary describes how the systemic weaknesses catalyzed by poor data collection approaches contribute to misdiagnosis and suggests that successes be mined to minimize the proliferation of continued disparities in this patient population.

Clinical decision support systems are designed to improve clinical decision-making. The authors of this commentary suggest an alternative, eActions, to reduce clinician burden and increase replicability. Dissemination and use of eActions could contribute to improved clinical care quality and research.

The "July Effect" refers to the idea there may be an increase in medical errors in July when newly graduated medical students begin their residencies. In this retrospective chart review of podiatric surgery patients, researchers did not find any statistically significant difference in patient outcomes between surgeries performed during the first quarter of residency (July-September) and the last quarter (April-June). Results suggest robust resident training programs can limit errors that may otherwise occur during this time of transition.  

… lessons learned to help build strong, cohesive teams . … Thompson R, Kusy M. Has the COVID pandemic strengthened or …

A positive safety culture can improve nursing-sensitive patient safety outcomes. This secondary analysis of Hospital Survey on Patient Safety scores indicate that manager- and peer-level factors greatly influence clinical nurses’ perceptions of patient safety and nonpunitive responses to error. The authors discuss the importance of the role of organizational leaders, managers and staff in creating a safe patient care environment

Vaccine errors can hinder immunization efforts in the United States. In this article, the authors summarize errors involving 2-component vaccines, discuss safe practices for storing, preparing, dispensing, and administering 2-component vaccines, and highlight risk reduction strategies.

Delays in treatment pose a significant threat to patient safety. The authors examined contribution of time to treatment and treatment duration on racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer outcomes among women in North Carolina. Results from this population-based cohort show that Black women experienced both delayed treatment initiation and prolonged treatment duration more often than White women. Socioeconomic factors and insurance coverage appear to be associated with these delays.

This study examined the prevalence and risk factors for COVID-19 infection among frontline healthcare personnel who work with COVID-19 patients. Serum specimens were collected from a convenience sample of 3,248 frontline personnel between April 3 and June 19, 2020.  Six percent (6%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies; a high proportion of these individuals did not suspect that they had been previously infected. This study highlights the role that asymptomatic COVID-19 infections play and authors suggest that enhanced screening and universal use of face coverings in hospitals are two strategies to reduce COVID-19 transmissions in healthcare settings.

… J Med Radiat Sci … This article describes the delivery of … among patients and healthcare workers .  … Anderson N, Thompson K, Andrews J, et al. Planning for a pandemic: Mitigating risk to …