The second victim concept encompasses an important concern for the impact of unsafe care on health care workers. This commentary discusses the topic and the need for system-level solutions to ensure surgical team members involved with patient harm due to errors can heal, and in doing so, provide safe care to their patients.

Emergency room crowding is a persistent factor that degrades safety for patients of all ages. This collection provides background, best practices, and recommendations to reduce emergency department crowding and its negative impact on pediatric care. The publications examine factors that influence crowding and improvement at the input, departmental, and hospital/outpatient stages of emergency care.

Research with medical and surgical residents has shown they are frequently reluctant to speak up about safety and unprofessional behavior they observe. This study asked emergency medicine residents about their speaking up behaviors. Using the Speaking Up Climate (SUC)-Safe and SUC-Prof surveys, residents reported generally neutral responses to speaking up, more favorable than their medical and surgical counterparts. In line with other studies, residents were more likely to speak up about patient safety than about unprofessional behaviors.

Medication errors can be common among medical trainees. Using semi-structured qualitative interviews, this study identified factors influencing suboptimal prescribing by medical residents during overnight coverage, including time pressures, perceived pressure and fear of judgement, clinical acuity, and communication issues between care team members.

Children with emergent care needs are often cared for in complex situations that can diminish safety. This joint policy statement updates preceding recommendations to enhance the safety of care to children presenting at the emergency department. It expands on the application of topics within a high-reliability framework focusing on leadership, managerial factors, and organizational factors that support safety culture and workforce empowerment to support safe emergency care for children.

… healthcare system. … Shiner B, Gottlieb DJ, Levis M, et al. National cross-sectional cohort study of the …

Unplanned discharges (also referred to as leaving against medical advice) can lead to adverse patient outcomes. This study compared unplanned discharges across Veterans Health Affairs (VHA) acute inpatient and residential mental health treatment settings over a ten-year period and found that unplanned discharges are significantly higher in mental health settings. The authors recommend that unplanned discharges be measured to assess patient safety in mental health.

Clinical decision support (CDS) tools are intended to enhance care decision and delivery processes. This single-site retrospective study evaluated whether a CDS tool can reduce discharge prescription errors for patients receiving a medication substitution at admission. Findings indicate that use of CDS did not result in a decrease in discharge prescription omissions, duplications, or inappropriate medication reconciliation.

… role of primary care physicians in post-discharge care. … Maxwell J, Bourgoin A, Crandall J. Potentially Preventable Readmissions: Conceptual Framework …

This revised set of guidelines suggests standards to ensure high-quality care for pediatric patients in the emergency department, including a section on improving patient safety. Key recommendations focus on pediatric emergency care coordinators and implementing quality control mechanisms.

This prospective cohort study examined the association between self-rated daytime sleepiness among trainee surgeons and attending surgeon–rated intraoperative technical skill. Higher ratings of sleepiness were associated with worse technical skills, echoing concerns about procedures performed by sleep-deprived surgeons.

Emergency departments harbor conditions that can hinder safe medication administration for pediatric patients. This policy statement identifies and prioritizes improvements such as implementing kilogram-only weight-based dosing, involving pharmacists in frontline emergency care, and utilizing computerized provider order entry and clinical decision support systems.

… to research risks of fatigue in health care. … P. … S. … Greig … Snow … P. Greig … S. Snow …

… American journal of forensic medicine and pathology … Am J Forensic Med Pathol … Autopsy is considered the gold … death and how the mistake may be disclosed to the patient's clinical team and family. …