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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 123 Results
Wawersik DM, Boutin ER, Gore T, et al. J Healthc Leadersh. 2023;15:59-70.
Psychological safety promotes speaking up and error reporting in the workplace, and many system and individual characteristics interact to promote or hinder reporting behavior. This review highlights individual characteristics that encourage error reporting, (confidence and positive perception of self, the organization, and leadership) or create barriers (self-preservation associated with fear and negative perceptions of self, the organization, and leadership).
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.
Institute for Safe Medication Practices. June 8-9, 2023.
This virtual workshop will explore tactics to ensure medication safety, including strategic planning, risk assessment, and Just Culture principles.
Mahmoud HA, Thavorn K, Mulpuru S, et al. BMJ Open Qual. 2023;12:e002134.
Incident reporting systems offer important opportunities for health systems to learn from safety events and improve outcomes. This systematic review of 22 studies identified barriers and facilitators influencing how health systems use and learn from incident reporting systems. Barriers included inadequate organizational support and resources, weak safety culture, lack of training and feedback, and a punitive environment. Factors supporting continuous improvement based on incident reporting systems included continuous training for staff, a just culture, leadership investment, and tangible improvements stemming from incident analysis.
Zhong J, Simpson KR, Spetz J, et al. J Patient Saf. 2023;19:166-172.
Missed nursing care is a key indicator of patient safety and has been linked to safety climate. Survey responses from 3,429 labor and delivery nurses from 253 hospitals across the United States found an average of 11 of 25 aspects of essential nursing care were occasionally, frequently, or always missed. Higher perceived safety climate was associated with less missed care. The authors discuss the importance of strategies to reduce missed care, such as adequate nurse staffing, ensuring nonpunitive responses to errors, and promoting open communication.

Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Care Quality Commission; March 2023.

The ability to raise patient safety concerns without fear of retribution is a core element of a safety culture. This pair of reports examines a failure in organizational response to an employee expressing concerns. The first report examines an explicit whistleblowing incident in the National Health Service that was poorly managed. The second looks at broader system-level elements needed to support effective responses when concerns are voiced.

Bean M, Carbajal E. Becker's Hospital Review. March 29, 2023.

The RaDonda Vaught conviction reverberated throughout health care and marked weaknesses in systems response to errors and the clinicians who make them. This news article examines how health care organizations renewed efforts to establish and nurture a culture of safety and error reporting in service of safe patient care and learning from mistakes.
Agbar F, Zhang S, Wu Y, et al. Nurse Educ Pract. 2023;67:103565.
Health systems seeking to improve patient safety culture (PSC) implement myriad of educational programs for their staff. This review identified 16 studies of PSC education programs that included before and after surveys or intervention and control groups. Results were generally positive, but repeated trainings may be needed to sustain the change. Additionally, based on the reporting using the AHRQ Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture (HSOPS), a culture of blame remained a pervasive problem despite improvements in other components of patient safety culture in many hospitals.
Brattebø G, Flaatten HK. Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2023;36:240-245.
Latent errors or conditions are subtle and can be difficult to identify before an incident occurs. This commentary calls for moving from the reactive "bad apple" paradigm to a proactive just culture, where errors and near misses serve as organizational learning opportunities, and not as a time for individual discipline.
Barlow M, Watson B, Jones EW, et al. BMC Nurs. 2023;22:26.
Healthcare providers may decide to speak up or remain silent about patient safety concerns based on the expected response of the recipient. In this study, clinicians from multiple disciplines responded to two hypothetical speaking up scenarios to explore the impact of communication behavior and speaker characteristics (e.g., discipline, seniority, presence of others) on the recipient’s intended response. Each of the factors played a role in how the clinician received the message and how they would respond.
Perspective on Safety March 21, 2023

Throughout 2022, the impact of system failures on healthcare workers was a recurrent theme of articles on AHRQ PSNet. This Year in Review explores these impacts and ways to support healthcare workers involved in a system failure.  

Throughout 2022, the impact of system failures on healthcare workers was a recurrent theme of articles on AHRQ PSNet. This Year in Review explores these impacts and ways to support healthcare workers involved in a system failure.  

Bilski J. Outpatient Surgery. February 2023;16-21

The concept of just culture was challenged in a high-profile medication error resulting in criminal charges for a nurse. This dialogue shares insights on the impact of the case on nurses, their profession, and patient safety.

Dabekaussen K, Scheepers RA, Heineman E, et al. PLoS One. 2023;18(1):e0280444.

Disruptive and unprofessional behavior has been linked to adverse events and staff burnout. This study describes the frequency and types of unprofessional behavior among health care professionals and identifies those most likely to exhibit unprofessional behavior and who is the likely target. Nearly two-thirds of respondents experienced unprofessional behavior at least monthly, most frequently from those outside their department.
Lucas SR, Pollak E, Makowski C. J Healthc Risk Manag. 2023;42:30-39.
Medical errors that receive widespread media attention frequently spur health systems to reexamine their own culture and practices to prevent similar errors. This commentary describes one health system’s effort to identify and improve the system factors (systems, processes, technology) involved in the error. The action plan proposed by this project includes ensuring a just culture so staff feel empowered to report errors and near-misses; regularly review and improve medication delivery systems; build resilient medication delivery systems; and, establish methods of investigations.
Pado K, Fraus K, Mulhem E, et al. J Clin Psychol Med Settings. 2022;Epub Dec 12.
Medical errors may lead to feelings of distress for clinicians, but these errors can also be an opportunity for growth. This study used the Second Victim Experience and Support Tool (SVEST) and the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory to assess the extent, if any, of growth following a medical mishap. Rumination and the impact of the medical mishap were associated with distress among both physicians and nurses. The impact of the event was associated with growth in nurses, but no factor was associated with growth in physicians.
McCain N, Ferguson T, Barry Hultquist T, et al. J Nurs Care Qual. 2023;38:26-32.
Daily huddles can improve team communication and awareness of safety incidents. This single-site study found that implementation of daily interdisciplinary huddles increased reporting of near-miss events and improved team satisfaction and perceived team communication, collaboration, and psychological safety.

Cooper J, Thomas BJ, Rebello E, et al for the APSF Criminalization of Error Task Force. APSF Newsletter. October 2022; 37(3):80-81

Criminalizing human error can deter the transparency necessary to learn from incidents and improve health care. This position statement articulates the importance of avoiding the criminal prosecution to mistakes to instead focus on system failures to prevent conditions that permit errors to harm patients.
Singh H, Mushtaq U, Marinez A, et al. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2022;48:581-590.
Diagnostic error continues to be a significant safety problem. Using a multimethod approach, this study developed a checklist of ten high-priority practices for diagnostic excellence which healthcare organizations can implement to address diagnostic errors. Priority practices include promoting speaking up behaviors through a just culture and psychologically safe environment; patient and family engagement in identifying, understanding, and addressing diagnostic safety concerns; and using multidisciplinary perspectives (including human factors and informatics) to understand factors contributing to diagnostic safety events.