… GP and ED services. … Cooper A, Carson-Stevens A, Cooke M, et al. Learning from diagnostic errors to improve patient …

… study. Patient Educ Couns. Epub 2021 Oct 30. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2021.10.016 …

In an effort to address increased patient demand and resulting patient safety concerns, England implemented a policy of general practitioners working in or alongside emergency departments. Thirteen hospitals using this service model were included in this study to explore care processes and patient safety concerns. Findings are grouped into three care processes: facilitating appropriate streaming decisions, supporting GPs’ clinical decision making, and improving communication between services.

Physicians have demonstrated knowledge gaps in accurately diagnosing child maltreatment. This article describes the implementation of a system-wide daily review of patients with concerns of maltreatment, allowing child abuse pediatricians (CAPs) to intervene and address potential errors (e.g., history taking, injury identification, testing for occult injuries, and cognitive analysis) and to identify patients who require immediate intervention. Over a 30-month period, the program identified potential diagnostic errors and safe discharge concerns, many of which led to new or changed diagnoses.

… J R Soc Med … This mixed-methods study analyzed patient … Wales: a mixed methods analysis for quality improvement. J R Soc Med. Epub 2021 Aug. doi: 10.1177/01410768211032589. …

… for transgender individuals. … Chong LSH, Kerklaan J, Clarke S, et al. Experiences and perspectives of …

… use of intraoperative checklists. … Cohen AJ, Lui H, Zheng M, et al. Rates of serious surgical errors in California and …

Methadone and buprenorphine are commonly prescribed to treat opioid use disorder, but their use presents patient safety risks. Using national data from England and Wales, this study analyzed 2,284 patient safety incident reports and found that harmful incidents involving opioid substitution treatment with methadone or buprenorphine in community-based care stemmed from errors in dispensing practices (e.g. wrong patient, incorrect dose, incorrect formulation). Staff- and organization-related factors – such as not following protocols, poor continuity of care – contributed to more than half of the incidents.

Using a national database of patient safety incident reports in the United Kingdom, this study characterized primary care-related incidents among vulnerable children and used thematic analysis to identify priority areas for systems improvement. Over 1,100 incident reports were identified; nearly half resulted in some degree of harm but most (39%) were considered ‘low harm.’ Children with  protection-related vulnerabilities experienced harm from unsafe care more frequently than children with social-, psychological, or physical vulnerabilities. The authors identified system priority action areas to mitigate harm among vulnerable children, including improving provider access to accurate information and reducing delays in provider referrals.

This retrospective study reviewed incident reports to characterize diagnostic errors occurring in emergency departments in England and Wales. The majority of incidents (86%) were delayed diagnoses; the remainder were wrong diagnoses. The authors identified three themes stemming from human factors that contributed to the diagnostic errors: insufficient assessment (e.g., failure to order imaging or refer patients when indicated), inappropriate response to diagnostic imaging, and failure to order diagnostic imaging. Potential interventions to address these contributors are briefly discussed.

This survey of 282 primary care physicians and ambulatory specialists found that several electronic health record design features contributed to clinician burnout, including excessive data entry requirements and long copied-and-pasted notes. However, other work environment factors (such as clinician workload) were more strongly predictive of work stress and burnout.

… Am J Emerg Med … This retrospective cohort study of 16,801 …

This commentary recommends that health care structure the work environment to address conditions that allow for failure. The authors discuss how increased commitment to collective accountability for improvement will result in the robust infrastructure, proactive risk assessment, and cultural conditions needed to ensure patient safety.

Patients receiving palliative care are often medically complex and may be at increased risk for safety events, especially when cared for outside of routine clinic hours. In this mixed-methods study, researchers analyzed patient safety incident reports regarding patients who received inadequate palliative care during nights and weekends from primary care services in the United Kingdom. Incidents related to medications were common, accounting for 613 out of the 1072 safety events included in the study.

The frequency and nature of adverse events experienced by patients receiving palliative care remains unknown. In this mixed-methods study, researchers analyzed patient safety incidents among patients receiving palliative care from a national database in England over a 12-year period. They found that pressure ulcers, medication errors, and falls were the most frequently reported types of events and conclude that there is significant opportunity to improve the safety of palliative care.

The World Health Organization International Classification for Patient Safety enables measurement of safety incident severity. In this study, researchers describe how they adapted the system to primary care. Their harm severity classification emphasizes psychological harm, hospitalizations, near misses, and uncertain outcomes in addition to traditional markers of harm.

… Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine … J R Soc Med … Investigators analyzed 132 incident reports …

Poor safety culture has been identified as a barrier to incident reporting. Researchers analyzed a sample of family practice patient safety incident reports from the England and Wales National Reporting and Learning System and found that blame was attributed to an individual in almost half of the reports. The authors suggest that successfully using incident reports to improve safety requires a shift to blame-free culture.