Learning collaboratives within the Canadian Patient Safety Institute are working to implement the Measurement and Monitoring of Safety Framework (MMSF). This paper describes the collaboratives’ experiences with integrating MMSF into their organizations. Hospitals reported small scale success and described challenges with implementation when the Framework was not aligned with existing quality and safety processes.

Implementation science is the practice of applying research to healthcare policies and practices. This study explores the role of implementation science in the success of quality improvement projects. Inclusion of expert implementation specialists and coaches were identified as best practices for successful quality improvement and patient safety projects. COVID-19 presented challenges for some facilities, however, including halting previously successful projects.

Achieving high reliability is a goal for every healthcare organization. Based on interviews with hospital leadership, clinicians, and staff, this study explored how healthcare professionals understand and perceive high-reliability principles. Findings indicate that some principles are more supported than others and identified inconsistent understanding of principles across different types of healthcare professionals.

Safety concerns are common in long-term care (LTC) facilities. This qualitative study of LTC nurses explored nurses’ experiences managing patient safety incidents (PSI). Three categories were identified: commitment to resident safety, workplace culture, and emotional reaction. Barriers and facilitators were also discussed.

Engaging patients and their families in quality and safety is considered central to providing truly patient-centered care. This systematic review included 48 studies involving the input of patients, family members, or caregivers on health care quality improvement initiatives to identify factors that facilitate successful engagement, patients' perceptions regarding their involvement, and patient engagement outcomes.

Adverse events occur frequently in the home care setting. A previous study estimated that about 10% of patients receiving home care experienced an adverse event, and research suggests that a significant proportion of these may be preventable. Early identification of patients at increased risk for harm in the home care setting may help inform hospital discharge planning and improve patient safety. Analyzing data from two prior Canadian home care patient safety studies, researchers found that both increased dependency for instrumental activities of daily living and a higher number of comorbid medical conditions placed patients at greater risk for adverse events. A past PSNet perspective discussed safety issues associated with care transitions after hospital discharge.

The SQUIRE guidelines were developed to improve reporting on research and initiatives targeted toward improving quality and safety of health care. This commentary provides examples for authors who seek to apply the revised guidelines in safety improvement work and write about their experiences.

This prospective error investigation study combined a trigger approach to identify possible adverse events with medical record review and structured interviews to determine underlying causes for adverse events. Investigators found that a myriad of factors contribute to adverse events, and multiple distinct interventions would be needed to prevent the detected events. The authors advocate for a framework to classify underlying causes together when they can be addressed by the same intervention.

This randomized controlled trial of different resident shift lengths (12, 16, and 24 hours) sought to examine how duty hours affect patient safety, housestaff well-being, and handoffs. The authors found no effects on patient safety outcomes, including adverse events and mortality. This study adds to literature suggesting that decreasing duty hours does not improve safety for hospitalized patients.

This educational study found that an objective structured medical examination, in which a learner's interaction with a standardized patient is observed by a trained clinician, can reliably assess learner competence in safety culture. This suggests that safety culture cases could be added to existing clinical examinations in patient safety.

Hand hygiene is a core practice for decreasing health care–associated infections, but achieving compliance has proven difficult. In this study, hand hygiene rates were about threefold higher when an auditor was present compared with hallway dispensers that were not visible by a direct observer. Since many publicly reported hand hygiene rates are based on direct auditor observations, this study suggests these metrics may be greatly inflated and unreliable. A prior WebM&M perspective reviewed recent strategies for promoting and monitoring hand hygiene.

Home care is one of the fastest growing sectors of the health care field, but recent research has raised safety concerns among patients receiving home services. A prospective cohort study revealed that 10% of home care patients experienced an adverse event, an incidence comparable to that found in hospitalized patients. This study used a Delphi approach to determine the types of adverse events in home care that should be considered serious (in terms of the level of patient harm) and preventable. Four types of serious preventable events were identified: inappropriate client service plans, medication errors requiring emergency treatment, catheter-associated infections, and incidents related to care that did not fall within practice standards. The authors advocate for using this classification scheme as the basis for a home care adverse event reporting system, analogous to state reporting systems for serious errors occurring in hospitalized patients.

In 2010, patient safety was seen as a critical unmet need in medical and nursing education. Although some formal systems-based curricula have emerged, there remain many areas for improvement related to incorporating these ideals into trainees' practices. This study explored the perspectives of frontline medical, nursing, and pharmacy faculty on integrating patient safety into health professional training. Significant differences emerged between the disciplines: physicians seemed to focus on communication and personal responsibility, pharmacists on the complexity of drugs, and nurses on the care environment. These varied viewpoints colored their approaches to patient safety teaching and suggest that a universal solution is unlikely. External regulatory requirements were seen as effective levers for driving curricular change across fields. The hidden curriculum was once again seen as a major influence on trainees' attitudes and behaviors. These findings highlight the importance of supporting faculty engaged in both formal and informal patient safety teaching.

This study estimated a cost of approximately CAD $260,000 over 4 years to develop and run a safety learning system for family physician clinics in Calgary, Alberta. Policy makers and payers may need to determine whether there is an adequate return on investment for the sustainability of these types of programs.

Adverse events are thought to be common in patients receiving home health care, but few high-quality studies address this issue. This prospective cohort study found that 1 in 10 home care patients experienced an adverse event each year, and more than half of these events were considered preventable.

This study applied survey validation techniques to the Canadian patient safety climate survey and found that it reliably measures safety culture.

This qualitative study identified key elements of successful local safety interventions. One prominent strategy was stakeholder ownership of a patient safety issue in a supportive interprofessional learning community.

An organization-wide patient safety program consisting of open access online educational modules, an online forum for communication, and a reward system, led to a significant increase in voluntary patient safety event reporting. The largest uptick was seen in near miss reporting, which nearly doubled following the intervention.

The hospital discharge process is often disorganized and lacks standardization. As a result, adverse events after hospital discharge are disturbingly common. This study reports on a multidisciplinary, collaborative effort—involving hospitalists, primary care physicians, home care and bedside nurses, and pharmacists—to develop a standardized hospital discharge checklist. The resulting tool is designed to be used daily during hospitalization as part of interprofessional discharge planning rounds and consists of seven domains that address key aspects of the hospital-to-home transition, including medication reconciliation and communication between physicians. Further validation will be required to demonstrate that this checklist can prevent adverse events in broad hospitalized patient populations.

In this study, 13.2% of home care patients experienced an adverse event, and approximately one-third of these were considered preventable.