The use of anesthesia in ambulatory settings presents both advantage and risk to patients and clinicians. This article discusses evidence defining these issues. It suggests that improved collaboration with anesthesiologists represents opportunities for nonoperating room anesthesia safety.

Concordance of patient-reported symptoms and provider-documented symptoms is necessary for appropriate patient care and has clinical implications for research. This study compared patient-reported symptoms (pain, pruritus, edema, and fatigue) following radiotherapy for breast cancer with provider assessments. Underrecognition of at least one symptom occurred in more than 50% of patients. Underrecognition was more common in Black patients and those seen by male physicians. The authors suggest that interventions to improve communication between providers and patients may not only improve outcomes but also reduce racial disparities.

Improving patient safety related to radiology and radiation oncology is an ongoing priority. This special issue explores themes related to radiology and radiation oncology, including monitoring and improving quality of care, promoting a culture of safety, and measuring, reporting, and learning from errors.

Frontline leadership should model just culture behaviors to encourage reporting and discussion of error to facilitate improvement. This news article uses a medical administration error to examine whether human error, at-risk behavior, or reckless action on the part of a clinician led to the mistake and explores leadership response to the incident to determine accountability in each type of situation.

Patient Safety Organizations enable robust data collection and analysis to support learning from medical error. This website of a Patient Safety Organization dedicated to radiation safety improvement offers a mechanism for voluntary reporting of radiation oncology incident data, a searchable database, and related publications.