Health information technology (IT) usability continues to be a source of patient harm. This study describes the perspectives of a variety of pediatric trauma team members (e.g., pediatric emergency medicine attending, surgical technician, pediatric intensive care unit attending) on the usability of a potential team health IT care transition tool. Numerous barriers and facilitators were identified and varied across department and role.

Handoffs from emergency medical services (EMS) to the emergency department (ED) are vulnerable to communication errors due to the time-pressured environment. This study reports on the implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) tool that added pre-hospital medication administration to the ED triage note to reduce medication administration errors (MAE). Although most ED providers reported they "always" review the triage note, MAE rates did not improve following implementation.

Pharmacists play a critical role in medication safety. This article evaluated the impact of a pharmacist-led information technology intervention (PINCER) among a retrospective cohort of 56.8 million National Health Service (NHS) patients across 6,367 general practices between September 2019 and September 2021. Findings indicate that potentially dangerous prescribing (i.e., prescribing medications to patients without associated blood test monitoring, co-prescribing medications with adverse indications, prescribing medications to patients with certain comorbidities) was largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Systems thinking concepts are used by healthcare organizations to encourage learning from failures and identifying solutions to complex patient safety problems. This article outlines a refined and validated set of systems thinking tenets and discusses how they can be used to proactively identify threats to patient safety.

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.

High-risk opioid prescribing can increase the risk of abuse and overdose. This study evaluated the impact of four opioid prescribing policies for opioid-naïve patients – nonopioid medications during surgery, decreased opioid doses in operating rooms, standardized electronic health record alerts, and limits on postoperative opioid supply – implemented by one opioid stewardship program in a large US healthcare system between 2016 and 2018. Post-implementation, researchers observed decreases in postoperative opioid prescription doses, fewer opioid prescription refills, and less patient-reported discharge pain.

… responding to disruptive and violent events. … Wells JM, Walker VP. "Do no harm": promoting anti-racist policing in …

People with disabilities face barriers to safe, equitable care such as inaccessible equipment and facilities or provider bias. In this study, primary care and specialist physicians described challenges with caring for patients with disabilities. Many expressed explicit biases such as reluctance to care for people with disabilities, invest in accessible equipment, or obtain continuing education to provide appropriate care.

Burnout is a significant problem among medical residents. This literature review characterizes the state of the evidence regarding resident burnout and professionalism. The authors discuss the evidence supporting the relationship between burnout and medical errors, poor quality patient care, and poor academic performance.

Patients and families prefer to be told if they experience a medical error. Given that marginalized patients experience medical errors at higher rates, it is important to understand their unique perspectives and preferences towards error disclosure. This systematic review identified 6 studies focused on error disclosure in one of three marginalized populations (older adults, low education attainment, racial and/or ethnic minority).

Safe medication management practices are critical to providing safe care in all healthcare settings. While there are studies reporting a variety of prehospital adverse events (e.g., respiratory and airway events, communication, etc.), there have been few studies of medication errors that occur in prehospital settings. This mixed methods systematic review of 56 studies and case reports identifies seven major themes such as organizational factors, equipment/medications, environmental factors, procedure-related factors, communication, patient-related factors, and cognitive factors as contributing to safe medication management.

Handoffs between inpatient care settings represent a vulnerable time for patients. This qualitative study explores how team cognition occurs during care transitions and interprofessional handoffs between inpatient settings and the influence of sociotechnical systems, such as communication workflows or electronic heath record-based interfaces) influence team cognition. Participants highlighted how interprofessional handoffs can both enhance (e.g., information exchange) and hinder (e.g., logistic challenges and imprecise communication) team cognition.

Root cause analysis (RCA) is widely used to investigate, monitor, and learn from unintended events (UE). One method of RCA is the Prevention and Recovery Information System for Monitoring and Analysis (PRISMA)-method. This review identified 25 studies that used the PRISMA method to analyze UEs. Combining record reviews with provider interviews and using multiple PRISMA-trained researchers may increase the number of causes identified.

Clinical decision support (CDS) systems are designed to improve diagnosis. Researchers surveyed emergency department physicians about their evaluation of human factors-based CDS systems to improve diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. Although perceived usability was high, use of the CDS tool in the real clinical environment was low; the authors identified several barriers to use, including lack of workflow integration.

… human factors in reducing error. … Read GJM, Shorrock S, Walker GH, et al. State of science: evolving perspectives on …

Care transitions can increase the risk of patient safety events. Using the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model, this study explored care transitions between operating rooms and inpatient critical care units and the importance of articulation work (i.e., preparation and follow-up activities related to transitions) to ensure safe transitions.

… Int J Surg … Surgical site infections (SSI) are a common, yet … by types of surgery). … Gillespie  BM, Harbeck E, Rattray M, et al. Worldwide incidence of surgical site infections in … review and meta-analysis of 488,594 patients. Int J Surg. 2021;95:106136. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2021.106136 …