This qualitative study combined the narratives of various critical care nurses into four representative scenarios demonstrating failure to recognize clinically deteriorating patients. The authors describe inattentional blindness, a concept in which individuals in high-complexity environments can miss an important event because of competing attentional tasks, as a key factor in these failure-to-rescue events.

Missed nursing care is a significant patient safety concern. This qualitative study identified cutting corners—defined as partially or completely omitting a nursing task—as a safety gap in inpatient nursing. Nurses perceived that cutting corners contributes to preventable harm.

… from minority cultural or linguistic backgrounds. … Johnstone MJ, Kanitsaki O. Engaging patients as safety partners: some …

The authors discuss the importance of understanding the relationship between culture, language, and patient safety and stress that not sufficiently addressing this relationship may put minority patients at risk for adverse events.

The authors argue for a new, evidence-based approach to training nurses in clinical risk management.

An analysis of disciplinary actions of Australian nurses indicated that methods for dealing with deliberate malfeasance were appropriate, but management of honest mistakes did not yet incorporate current thinking on human error management.