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The PSNet Collection: All Content

The AHRQ PSNet Collection comprises an extensive selection of resources relevant to the patient safety community. These resources come in a variety of formats, including literature, research, tools, and Web sites. Resources are identified using the National Library of Medicine’s Medline database, various news and content aggregators, and the expertise of the AHRQ PSNet editorial and technical teams.

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 782 Results

Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research: April 27, 2023.

Ambulatory surgery centers (ASC) experience a variety of error types that can be acerbated by poor safety culture. This webcast provided information on AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Survey, including a review of the SOPS ASC program, survey administration, database submission, and available resources.
Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; October 2020.
Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are increasingly being used to provide surgical care. The AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Ambulatory Surgery Center Survey seeks opinions from the field regarding safety culture in the ambulatory surgical center environment. The survey is presented with additional resources to help organizations assess their safety culture, including the results of a pilot program testing the survey and a user's guide. Voluntary data submission will be open June 1-22 for ASCs that have administered the survey.

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals. Epsom, UK: National Health Service; March 21, 2023.

The Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework is an established human factors-based approach to designing care system improvements. This video introduces the concepts behind SEIPS and uses an everyday non-clinical activity to illustrate its use for a broad audience to identify problems.
Fillo KT, Saunders K. Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality, Department of Public Health. Boston, MA: Commonwealth of Massachusetts; 2023.
This reoccurring report compiles patient safety data collected by Massachusetts hospitals. The 2022 numbers document an increase in serious reportable events recorded in acute care hospitals, from 1430 the previous year to 1632. This presentation also includes events from ambulatory surgery centers. Older reports are also available.

National Action Alliance. June 27, 2023. 2:00- 3:00 PM (eastern)

Violence in the health care environment detracts from staff and clinician ability to provide safe care. Sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this webinar will discuss the importance of violence prevention.
May 4, 2023
The implementation of effective patient safety initiatives is challenging due to the complexity of the health care environment. This curated library shares resources summarizing overarching ideas and strategies that can aid in successful program execution, establishment, and sustainability.

Massachusetts Healthcare Safety and Quality Consortium. Boston, MA: Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety; April 2023.

Collective engagement and focus are required to attain large system change. This plan centers on five goals to improve patient safety in Massachusetts: leadership and culture, operations and engagement, patient and family support, workforce wellbeing, and measurement and transparency. The document provides guidance for implementation of strategies targeting each goal to generate sustainable improvements.

Health and Human Services. June 27, 2023. 2:00-3:00pm (eastern).

Work toward zero harm in health care is gaining national attention in the United States. This webinar aligns with efforts by the National Action Alliance to Advance Patient Safety. The session will explore the importance of preventing workplace violence in healthcare settings. This is the second in a series of offerings from the Alliance supporting its work to improve safety.
Rockville MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2020.
Culture has been described as a key to establishing high reliability organizations. The National Quality Forum's Safe Practices for Healthcare and the Leapfrog Group both mandate hospitals to regularly assess their safety culture. This AHRQ Web site provides validated safety culture survey tools (Hospital, Medical Office, Nursing Home, Community Pharmacy, Ambulatory Surgery Center), user guides health care organizations can use to implement the surveys and a bibliography of articles discussing the use of SOPS in the field. Organizations can also use the AHRQ database to compare their Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) results. In addition, reports are available that summarize the benchmarking data across cohorts nationwide. An AHRQ WebM&M perspective discussed how to establish a safety culture.
Patient Safety Surveillance Unit. Department of Health, Perth: Western Australia.
This annual report shares the results of Western Australia's sentinel event reporting program. Medication errors were the highest recorded sentinel event in the latest period. The data is placed in the context of the overall data collected over the last 5 years of the program.

Washington, DC: VA Office of the Inspector General; March 29, 2023. Report no. 21-03680-80.

Care systems for alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients are suboptimal. This report examines the case of a patient with AUD whose emergency care was mismanaged, uncoordinated, and incomplete, contributing to his death two days after discharge. The safety recommendations shared include improving discharge planning, assessment, and consideration of mental health conditions when caring for AUD patients.
Drug Enforcement Administration. April 22, 2023.
Removing unused medications from the home can help prevent accidental exposure to unneeded medications and limit their availability for misuse. This semi-annual program provides patients with an opportunity to discard medications safely. The sponsors also provide education to highlight the importance of appropriate disposal of unused prescription drugs as a medication safety activity.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; March 2023. AHRQ Pub. No. 23-0032.

The Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD) serves a central role in understanding the current state of care as tracked by patient safety measures. The 2023 Chartbook offers an overview of nonidentifiable, aggregated patient safety event, and near-miss information, voluntarily reported to data collection initiatives across the United States between 2000 and 2020. The Chartbook includes a summary of trends, disparities findings, and figures illustrating select patient safety measures.

PAR-23-120. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health; March 7, 2023

Approaching diagnosis as a team activity is seen as a key approach to diagnostic effectiveness. This notice highlights a funding opportunity to launch Diagnostic Centers of Excellence to improve diagnosis of undiagnosed and unknown disease and research to inform improvement.
Curated Libraries
March 8, 2023
Value as an element of patient safety is emerging as an approach to prioritize and evaluate improvement actions. This library highlights resources that explore the business case for cost effective, efficient and impactful efforts to reduce medical errors.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. February 15, 2023. RFA-HS-23-002.

Equity improvements are gaining increased traction as a patient safety strategy. This announcement seeks proposals that would use dissemination and implementation science to fill evidence gaps critical to the development, adaption, implementation, and evaluation of equity-focused evidence-based interventions to accelerate health equity within healthcare delivery systems. The application deadline is April 21, 2023.

Food and Drug Administration. February 23. 2023.

Mismatches of medical device connectors are known factors in therapeutic agent administration failures, despite efforts to redesign equipment and minimize their occurrence. This series of case studies drawn from reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration illustrates a variety of misconnection scenarios to demonstrate situations that have a range of potential for patient harm.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research; February 8, 2023.

The articulation of diagnostic error in the ambulatory setting is emerging. These newly released funding announcements seek proposals that focus on understanding the factors contributing to diagnostic error and strategies to improve diagnostic safety in the ambulatory care environment. The application deadline for both opportunities is April 18, 2023.

Washington, DC: VA Office of the Inspector General; February 2, 2023. Report no. 22-01363-52.

Gaps in care for psychologically vulnerable patients can result in harm to family members and self-harm. This report examines organizational failures in responding to staff and clinical leaders’ concerns regarding access, triage, and care continuity for mental health patients. Recommendations for improvement include same-day access to appropriate specialty care, medication management, and risk documentation.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; January 2023. AHRQ Pub. No.22(23)-0065-1.

Research has shown that involving patients, their families and caregivers, in the planning, delivery, and evaluation of their healthcare can improve safety and quality. This collection of AHRQ-funded work includes summaries of 53 projects since 2000 that contributed to environments in which patients, families, and healthcare professionals work together to improve the quality and safety of care. Efforts highlighted include those involving patients and families in activities designed to report and ultimately prevent medical errors and near misses.