Sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients may experience poor quality of healthcare due to stigma and discrimination. This qualitative study explored diagnostic challenges and the impact of diagnostic errors among 20 participants identifying as sexual minorities and/or gender minorities. Participants attribute diagnostic error to provider-level and personal challenges and how diagnostic error worsened health outcomes and led to disengagement from healthcare. The authors of this article also summarize patient-proposed solutions to diagnostic error through the use of inclusive language, increasing education and training on SGM topics, and inclusion of more SGM individuals in healthcare.

Previous research has identified gender and racial disparities in the burden of diagnostic errors. In this study, researchers conducted a series of human-centered design workshops with a diverse set of stakeholders who generated a set of design challenges, principles, and solutions for addressing diagnostic disparities, improving healthcare quality, and promoting equity and inclusion of marginalized patients. Participants also identified two prototypes for the solutions – a visit preparation guide to teach patients how to advocate for themselves and a tool for identifying patients who may be at increased risk for experiencing a diagnostic error.

… – contributed to the greatest harm. … Zrelak PA, Utter GH, McDonald KM, et al. Incorporating Harms into the Weighting of …

… and improve patient outcomes. … Yousef EA, Sutcliffe KM, McDonald KM, et al. Crossing academic boundaries for …

This study used direct observation and interviews to assess hazards in the medication use process in a sample of ambulatory patients who predominantly had low health literacy. The investigators found that the outpatient medication use process is fragmented and complex with poor coordination between clinicians, pharmacists, and insurance companies, forcing patients to develop self-management strategies to manage their chronic health conditions.

… IT implementation reported more problems. A past WebM&M commentary highlighted an incident involving a delay in …

Patient safety in the ambulatory setting is gaining traction as a focus of research and improvement efforts. Discussing the methods and results of an AHRQ Technical Brief, this commentary summarizes expert opinion on the report to propose recommendations for a research strategy on ambulatory patient safety. The authors outline patient safety practices relevant to the ambulatory setting and suggest activities to advance improvement efforts in outpatient care, such as measure development and use of health information technologies.

Using data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, this retrospective secondary data analysis found an overall increase in opioid-related hospital visits, with a peak in 2010 and gradual decline since then. Coincident with the decline in opioid-related visits, a sharp rise in heroin-related hospital visits emerged. These results underscore the concern that tighter controls on opioid medications may lead to heroin use.

Diagnostic error in the ambulatory care setting is common, particularly with regard to missed or delayed diagnoses of cancer. This study used human factors engineering and design thinking approaches to develop an understanding of how ambulatory specialists monitor patients with high-risk conditions and to identify vulnerabilities in the monitoring process that could lead to delayed diagnoses.

Concurrent use of opioids and benzodiazepines increases risk for adverse drug events. This retrospective analysis of medical claims found that the risk of emergency department visit was greater for patients with concurrent use of these two medication classes compared to patients on opioids alone. This finding supports the recommendation to avoid coprescribing these two medication classes.

The AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) can identify adverse events in hospital data. This study demonstrated that PSIs were associated with longer hospital stays and increased mortality. Neurosurgery patients were more likely to have PSIs occur than other surgical patients.

Measurement in patient safety is challenging and requires consensus to determine the presence of specific problems. In light of recommendations from the Improving Diagnosis in Health Care report, this commentary reviews five purposes for measuring diagnostic errors: determining the extent of diagnostic errors; understanding their underlying causes; measuring whether interventions work; skill assessment for training and education; and tracking performance. The authors describe how achieving each of these goals will require distinct strategies. A PSNet interview with Hardeep Singh discussed issues of measurement in diagnosis.

The AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) do not include adverse events after hospital discharge, which could introduce bias into measurement of safety events at the individual hospital level. However, this study found that inclusion of postdischarge adverse events in PSI calculations did not significantly change comparisons of safety between hospitals or within the same hospital over time.

Using AHRQ patient safety indicators, this study established that approximately 4% of plastic surgery patients experience an adverse event during their hospital stay. This rate is relatively low compared with other surgical disciplines, but it is significant due to the proportion of young healthy patients who undergo plastic surgery.

This commentary uses case examples to demonstrate how economic analysis may help inform efforts to improve the safety of diagnostic decision making.

… systems, research, and policy. A previous AHRQ WebM&M perspective with Dr. Mark Graber discussed diagnostic …

Simulation was initially used in health care as a tool for teaching clinical skills, but it is increasingly being used as a component of teamwork training. Although a recent systematic review found that simulation methods are effective (compared with traditional didactic teaching) at improving learners' skills and behaviors, their effect on patient care remains unclear. This systematic review identified 38 studies—most of which used simulation to teach procedural skills—that examined the effect of simulation training on patient-level outcomes and found evidence that simulation improves team behaviors, procedural competence, and patient care outcomes. This study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality as part of the Making Health Care Safer II report and was published as part of a special patient safety supplement in the Annals of Internal Medicine. An AHRQ WebM&M perspective and interview discuss the role of technology in simulation and the characteristics of optimal simulation exercises.

Conducted as part of the AHRQ Making Health Care Safer II report, this article reviews the expanding research base in diagnostic error prevention. Several promising systems-based interventions were identified that seemed to reduce diagnostic errors, although the strength of evidence for these strategies was low.

Progress in patient safety improvement has been hindered by a lack of high-quality research on error prevention, poor understanding of how context influences safety strategies, and insufficient information on how best to implement evidence-based safety strategies. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality funded a multi-institutional effort to address these challenges, which culminated in the release of the Making Health Care Safer II report. Detailing methodology that the report's authors used to systematically review the evidence on effectiveness, context, and implementation for 41 key safety strategies, this commentary presents 10 strategies considered ready for widespread implementation. These strategies—including checklists to prevent certain health care–associated infections and surgical complications, bundled interventions to reduce falls and pressure ulcers, and interventions to decrease medication errors and improve hand hygiene—are all considered to have strong evidence of effectiveness, minimal potential for adverse consequences, and be reasonably easy to implement. This commentary is part of a special patient safety supplement in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Vascular surgery is considered a higher risk surgical specialty, as many patients undergoing vascular procedures are elderly and have other comorbid illnesses, putting them at elevated risk of postoperative complications. This study used Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) to analyze more than 1.4 million patients who underwent vascular surgery from 2005–2009 and found that more than 5% experienced a postoperative adverse event. Procedural complexity and comorbidities were associated with increased risk of a PSI, corroborating prior studies that have found a link between illness severity and risk of complications in medical patients. The PSIs are best used to screen administrative data for potential adverse events, as in this study. In surgical patients, the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program measures have been shown to be superior for accurate detection of postoperative adverse events.