Determining which harms are truly preventable remains an ongoing challenge in the field of patient safety. In a 2016 report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine called for achieving zero preventable trauma deaths, but the actual number of preventable trauma deaths in the United States remains unknown. Analyzing administrative data from more than 18 million patients across 2198 hospitals, investigators determined that if low-performing hospitals could provide the same quality of trauma care as high-performing centers, 100,000 lives could be saved over a 5-year period.

… Emergency medicine journal : EMJ … Emerg Med J … The weekend effect has been observed across multiple …

Previous literature has shown that safety culture and nontechnical skills (such as communication) can affect safety and clinical outcomes in patients undergoing surgery. This systematic review identified several interventions that demonstrated effectiveness at improving various aspects of surgical culture, including teamwork and communication. A past AHRQ WebM&M commentary discussed disruptive behavior as a contributor to safety issues in surgery.

The introduction of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement central line bundle into a surgical intensive care unit dramatically reduced the incidence of central line–associated bloodstream infections, preventing an estimated 2.5 deaths per year in this single unit.

In this study involving surgical residents, the introduction of realistic interruptions and distractions into simulated surgical scenarios resulted in a significantly higher incidence of technical errors during the procedures.

… The Journal of trauma … J Trauma … Trauma patients admitted in the early weeks of the …

Clinicians constantly encounter the challenge of how to ensure that appropriate patient safety measures are reliably carried out, especially in complex environments such as the intensive care unit (ICU). Preventable complications have been successfully reduced through the use of checklists, analogous to those used in aviation. This study used a "quality rounds checklist," which was completed by the ICU fellow, to ensure that trauma ICU patients received important patient safety interventions (including some recommendations of the 100,000 Lives campaign). Use of the tool resulted in significant reductions in ventilator-associated pneumonia and central line–associated bloodstream infections. A prior study implemented a similar tool to ensure multidisciplinary communication in the ICU.