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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 57 Results

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.
Grauer A, Rosen A, Applebaum JR, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2023;Epub Jan 30.
Medication errors can happen at any step along the medication pathway, from ordering to administration. This study focuses on ordering errors reported to the AHRQ Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD) from 2010 to 2020. The most common categories of ordering errors were incorrect dose, incorrect medication, and incorrect duration; nearly 80% of errors were definitely or likely preventable.
Leapfrog Group
Drawing from data reported by the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), this website provides grades for hospitals in the United States based on their safety. The Fall 2022 hospital safety grade results, representing the 10th anniversary of the program, are available. A 2019 report from the Armstrong Institute examines avoidable death associated with grading hospitals. 

Plymouth Meeting, PA: ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2022.

Racist behavior directed at either patients or clinicians can degrade the safety of care. This report reviewed over 500 race- or ethnicity-related patient safety incidents to determine the types of actions involved and the role of the individual committing the action. In addition, the impact of the behaviors on the mental health of providers is examined. The report suggests strategies for understanding, detecting, and reducing health disparities.
Austin JM, Bane A, Gooder V, et al. J Patient Saf. 2022;18:526-530.
Use of bar code medication administration (BCMA) technology in hospitals has been shown to decrease medication errors at the time of administration. In 2016, the Leapfrog Group implemented a standard for BCMA use as part of its hospital survey. This article describes the development, testing, and subsequent refinement of the BCMA standard.
Kepner S, Jones RM. Patient Safety. 2022;4:18-33.
Acute care facilities in Pennsylvania are required to report all Incidents and Serious Events to the state’s Patient Safety Authority. This study updates the 2020 report. Similar to prior reports, Error Related to Procedure/Treatment/Test remained the most commonly reported events, followed by Medication Error, Complication of Procedure/Treatment/Test, and Fall.
Bradford A, Shahid U, Schiff GD, et al. J Patient Saf. 2022;18:521-525.
Common Formats for Event Reporting allow organizations to collect and share standardized adverse event data. This study conducted a usability assessment of AHRQ’s proposed Common Formats Event Reporting for Diagnostic Safety (CFER-DS). Feedback from eight patient safety experts was generally positive, although they also identified potential reporter burden, with each report taking 30-90 minutes to complete. CFER-DS Version 1.0 is now available.
Hamad DM, Mandell SP, Stewart RM, et al. J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2022;92:473-480.
By analyzing errors that lead to preventable or potentially preventable deaths in trauma care, healthcare organizations can develop mitigation strategies to prevent those errors from reoccurring. This study classified events anonymously reported by trauma centers using the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations Patient Safety Event Taxonomy. Mitigation strategies were most often low-level, person-focused (e.g., education and training).
St.Pierre M, Grawe P, Bergström J, et al. Safety Sci. 2021;147:105593.
The release of the Institute of Medicine (IOM)’s To Err is Human report in 1999 was a seminal moment in the patient safety movement. This bibliometric analysis found that the report has been mentioned in over 20,000 scientific publications since 2000, but that the themes of recent research do not necessarily align with the initial focus of the IOM report. For example, research on incident reporting and systems approaches to improving safety are underrepresented relative to their emphasis in the IOM report.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; November 2021. AHRQ Pub. No. 22-0005.

This analysis of reports submitted by Patient Safety Organizations during the early months of the COVID pandemic found that patients testing positive for COVID-19 or being investigated for carrying the virus was the most frequently reported patient safety concern (26.6%). In addition, patients and staff being exposed to individuals who had tested positive for COVID-19 was identified as a patient safety issue in 18.2% of the records analyzed.

EQT Plaza, 625 Liberty Ave, Ste. 2500, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

Centralized reporting and analysis of adverse events in health care is a safety improvement model from the aviation industry that has yet to be enabled in health care. This organization shares information to support the establishment of a national body charged with the  collection and monitoring of adverse event data to inform research and recommendations for medical error reduction.

Pasztor A. Wall Street Journal. September 2, 2021.

Aviation continues to serve as an exemplar for healthcare safety efforts. This story highlights work toward the development of a National Patient Safety Board for medicine to establish a neutral centralized body to examine errors and share improvements driven by a robust self-reporting culture similar to that in commercial aviation.
Nasca BJ, Bilimoria KY, Yang AD. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2021;47:604-607.
Surgical safety has made advances while new difficulties continuously emerge. This article suggests that the specialties capitalize on artificial intelligence and professional wellness as two avenues to generate sustainable safety progress.
Levy FH, Conrad KA, Kemper C, et al. Pediatr Qual Saf. 2021;6:e449.
Patient safety organizations (PSOs) collect and analyze protected safety incident data from across the United States. This article describes the development of the Child Health PSO and how it evolved into a learning network through alignment around a common goal, collaboration, and information sharing with high levels of engagement from participating children’s hospitals.

The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.

Polypharmacy is a known challenge to patient safety. This collective program encourages long-term care organizations, physicians, and pharmacists to take part in a learning network to share aggregated data, lessons learned, and educational opportunities to reduce medication adverse events through safe deprescribing. 
D’Amore JD, McCrary LK, Denson J, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2021;28:1534-1542.
Quality measurement is increasingly being incorporated into policies outlining healthcare provider reimbursement. This study compared quality measure calculations between an individual electronic health record (EHR) source and the same EHR source combined with health information exchange (HIE) data. The results show that adding HIE data changed 15% of quality measure calculations. The authors suggest that incorporating HIE data into reimbursement programs could promote more accurate and representative quality measurement.
Harper A, Kukielka E, Jones RM. Patient Safety. 2021;3:10-22.
Although medication reconciliation is a common strategy to improve medication safety, barriers to implementation and threats to safety persist. Based on events reported to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System, the authors characterized serious events related to medication reconciliation. The most common process failures contributing to patient harm occurred during order entry/transcription and resulted most frequently in the wrong dose or dose omission. The authors suggest risk reduction strategies including defined clinician roles for medication reconciliation, listing the indication for prescribed medications, and adding anticonvulsants to processes for medication with high risk for harm.

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute Care. March 11, 2021;26(5):1-6.

Skin patches are a convenient medication delivery method but may harbor unique threats to safety. This article examines transdermal patch errors submitted to a national reporting program to provide safety improvement insights. Recommendations suggested for improvement focus on topics such as prescribing, patch management upon hospital admission, and labeling issues.
Haché M, Sun LS, Gadi G, et al. Paediatr Anaesth. 2020;30:1348-1354.
The Wake Up Safe initiative includes a registry of serious adverse events occurring in pediatric anesthesia. This study analyzed events reported between 2010 and 2015. The most common anesthesia-related events were medication events, respiratory complications, and cardiac events. Approximately 85% of these events were considered to be preventable.  

Sorry Works! 

Patients and families experiencing medical error may not always have access to the support needed to navigate the system to inform improvements and receive appropriate restitution. This hotline will provide general information to individuals that contact the organization for help when they feel an error may have occurred in their care or the care of a family member.