Implementing successful interventions to support effective medication reconciliation is an ongoing challenge. The MARQUIS2 study examined whether system- and patient-level interventions plus physician mentors can improve medication reconciliation and reduce medication discrepancies. This analysis based on patient exposure in the MARQUIS2 study found that patient receipt of a best possible medication history (BPMH) in the emergency department and medication reconciliation at admission and discharge were associated with the largest reductions in medication discrepancy rates.

… and more appropriate prescribing. … Galanter W, Eguale T, Gellad W, et al. Personal formularies of primary care …

Medication reconciliation aims to prevent adverse events during transitions of care, but implementing effective interventions supporting medication reconciliation has proven challenging. Building upon lessons learned in the MARQUIS1 study, this pragmatic quality improvement study (MARQUIS2) implemented a refined toolkit including system-level and patient-level interventions as well as physician mentors providing remote coaching and in-person site visits. Across 17 hospital sites, the intervention was associated with a significant decrease in unintentional mediation discrepancies over time.

Cascades of care (or follow up) on incidental findings from diagnostic tests are common but are not always clinically meaningful. This study reports the results of a nationally representative group of physicians who were surveyed on their experiences with cascades. Almost all respondents had experienced cascades and many reported harms to patients and personal frustration and anxiety that may contribute to physician burnout.

In this cluster-randomized trial, researchers examined the impact of an automated phone call with the option of transfer to a live pharmacist on detecting potential adverse drug events for patients newly started on medications for certain conditions in the primary care setting. Patients receiving the intervention were more likely to have medications stopped with documentation reflecting adverse effects.

Accreditation is a widely accepted strategy for ensuring hospital quality and safety. Hospitals accredited by The Joint Commission have been found to have improved performance on care quality metrics. However, few researchers have investigated whether or how accreditation affects patient outcomes. Investigators used Medicare data to assess the relationship between Joint Commission accreditation, other independent accreditation, or state survey review only (no independent accreditation) on patient outcomes and experience. Surgical mortality and readmissions did not differ between hospitals with and without accreditation. For medical conditions, accredited hospitals had a lower readmission rate but no statistically significant difference in mortality rate. Patient experience was modestly better at hospitals without accreditation. These findings may reflect how state survey and independent accreditation have converged in terms of methods and efficacy. A PSNet interview with The Joint Commission's CEO discussed the organization's efforts to use accreditation as one of many tools to promote high reliability in health care.

The goal of medication reconciliation is to prevent unintended medication discrepancies at times of transitions in care, which can lead to adverse events. Implementing effective medication reconciliation interventions has proven to be challenging. In this AHRQ-funded quality improvement study, five hospitals implemented a standardized approach to admission and discharge medication reconciliation using an evidence-based toolkit with longitudinal mentorship from the study investigators. The toolkit was implemented at each study site by a pharmacist and a hospitalist with support from local leadership. The intervention did not achieve overall reduction in potentially harmful medication discrepancies compared to baseline temporal trends. However, significant differences existed between the study sites, with sites that successfully implemented the recommended interventions being more likely to achieve reductions in harmful medication discrepancies. The study highlights the difficulty inherent in implementing quality improvement interventions in real-world settings. A WebM&M commentary discussed the importance of medication reconciliation and suggested best practices.

Clinical decision support systems in electronic health records (EHRs) aim to avert adverse events, especially medication errors. However, alerts are pervasive and often irrelevant, leading patient safety experts to question whether their modest improvement in safety outweighs the harms of alert fatigue. This study assessed provider overrides of a commercial EHR's medication alerts in intensive care units at one institution. Providers overrode most alerts, and the majority of those overrides were appropriate. Inappropriate overrides occasionally led to medication errors and did so more frequently than appropriate overrides. A recent WebM&M commentary recommends employing human factors engineering to make clinical decision support more effective.

Under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, hospitals are subject to nonpayment if patients with certain medical conditions are readmitted. Research supports the effectiveness of this program in decreasing readmissions and some have argued for expansion to a hospital-wide readmission measure. Using Medicare claims data, investigators concluded that transitioning to a hospital-wide readmission measure would lead to greater penalties for safety-net hospitals compared to other hospitals, a concern that has been raised with regard to Medicare's Hospital-Acquired Condition Program.

Public reporting efforts focused on surgeons have received mixed responses from both the profession and the public. This commentary argues that reporting outcomes at the individual, rather than organizational, level is important to help patients make decisions regarding provider choice and establish surgeon accountability for the safety and quality of their practice. A PSNet perspective discussed accountability in patient safety.

A recent AHRQ technical brief on ambulatory safety found that evidence for effective interventions is lacking. This cluster-randomized controlled trial examined whether participation in a multimodal quality improvement intervention enhanced safety processes at primary care clinics compared to usual practice. Using chart review, investigators determined that clinics receiving the intervention—which included a learning network, webinars, in-person meetings, and coaching—improved documentation and patient notification for abnormal test results overall. Also, time between test date and treatment plan was shorter in intervention sites. Through pre–post surveys, they learned that patient perceptions of quality and safety improved modestly for coordination and communication but were otherwise similar between the sites. Staff perceptions of safety and quality were similar pre–post and between intervention and control sites. Barriers to improvement included time and resource constraints, staff turnover, health information technology, and local practice variation. The authors recommend further study to determine the potential for multimodal practice-level interventions to enhance outpatient safety.

This retrospective study reviewed more than 47,000 overridden medication alerts and found that the vast majority of overrides were clinically appropriate and did not cause harm. From this sample, 7 adverse drug events were identified, and these events were more likely when the alerts were overridden in error. This study demonstrates the challenge of identifying clinically important alerts in a setting where alert fatigue is common.

Adverse drug events (ADEs) are a common source of patient harm in the ambulatory setting. A substantial proportion of ADEs are caused by preventable errors in medication prescribing or monitoring. The introduction of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) has been shown to reduce the rate of medical errors in the inpatient setting. This before–after study examined rates of ADEs in primary care practices that implemented a CPOE system in Boston and Indianapolis. At baseline, the potential ADE rate was more than seven-fold greater in Indianapolis compared to Boston. Following CPOE implementation, this rate decreased by 56% in Indianapolis but increased by 104% in Boston, and there was no change overall in preventable ADEs. A recent PSNet annual perspective reviewed the relationship and current evidence linking CPOE and patient safety.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services star ratings are based on patient experience surveys, and the relationship between such ratings and patient outcomes has not been well-established. This secondary data analysis found that hospitals with higher star ratings had lower 30-day mortality and readmission rates. The authors suggest that these ratings may lead patients to higher-performing hospitals.

In this call for better measurement and reporting, two patient safety experts lay out steps that federal policymakers can take to advance patient safety. The commentary emphasizes the need for valid patient safety measures and mentions the Surgeon Scorecard as an example of journalists and private companies stepping in to provide needed transparency. The authors suggest that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) focus on measures of the most common causes of iatrogenic harm to hospitalized patients, including adverse drug events, hospital-acquired conditions, and surgical complications. They recommend that CMS remove current metrics that rely on administrative data due to concerns about validity and accuracy of these measures. The commentary advocates for tasking an official agency with defining measurement standards and benchmarks. The authors also propose that Congress fund research on systems engineering. A recent PSNet interview discussed AHRQ's efforts to develop patient safety measures and improvement programs.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service's policy on nonpayment for certain hospital readmissions has reduced their incidence. However, this policy change may have unintended consequences. One possible outcome is an increased number of patients who return to the hospital being placed on observation status. Comparing readmission rates and observation stays for targeted and nontargeted conditions, this secondary data analysis examined how observation stay rates changed in parallel with readmission rates. The authors found that readmissions decreased, consistent with prior studies, and observation stays increased. Interestingly, a within-hospital analysis determined that the decline in readmissions was not explained by an increase in observation stays. This finding should allay concerns about this specific unintended consequence of the readmission policy, although other issues such as length of stay changes should be addressed.

… downstream health and economic implications. … Khullar D, Jha AK, Jena AB. Reducing Diagnostic Errors--Why Now?.  N …

… hospitals used more effective management practices, i.e., they consistently set quality targets and had a greater … discussed in a past AHRQ WebM&M perspective . … Tsai TC, Jha AK, Gawande AA, Huckman RS, Bloom N, Sadun R. Hospital …

One strategy to improve patient safety is public reporting of performance data, and hospital quality ratings have proliferated. In this study, researchers examined the extent of agreement among hospital ratings issued by U.S. News & World Report, HealthGrades, The Leapfrog Group, and Consumer Reports. Each rating system has a different emphasis, varying inclusion and exclusion criteria, and focuses on different measures of quality. There is very little agreement among the ratings for either high or low performance—not one hospital was rated as a top performer across all four ratings—which makes these ratings challenging for consumers to interpret or use in decision making. These findings are consistent with prior work demonstrating variability in surgical quality rankings. The authors call for transparency in how ratings are constructed and clear communication with consumers to facilitate informed decisions regarding their care. A recent AHRQ WebM&M interview with Leah Binder, President and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, explored the development of the Hospital Safety Score and Leapfrog Hospital Survey.

In order to characterize outpatient safety, this study of small- and medium-sized ambulatory clinics surveyed administrators about organizational safety and staff about communication and existing safety processes. Administrators reported a lack of safety systems, consistent with prior discussion of ambulatory settings. As with earlier research in hospitals, frontline staff describe difficulty speaking up about errors. Staff responses suggested that insufficient time to manage their workload leads to safety problems, echoing a recent focus group study of physicians. Respondents also reported weaknesses in outpatient referral processes. Overall, staff and administrators in ambulatory practices continue to identify gaps in care that contribute to adverse events, highlighting opportunities to improve safety in primary care settings. A recent AHRQ WebM&M interview and perspective discuss patient safety in ambulatory care.