Pediatric mental health is a patient safety concern. This news story outlines the challenges to available services to address this need, tactics to keep young patients from harming themselves or others, and system-level approaches to improvement.

Behavioral health workers are particularly susceptible to burnout, which sets the stage for unsafe care. This guide highlights organizational strategies to amend six thematic conditions in the behavioral health setting that degrade worker wellbeing: workload; control; reward, promotion, and career development; community; fairness; and values.

The National Quality Forum has defined 29 never events—patient safety problems that should never occur, such as wrong-site surgery and patient falls. Since 2003, Minnesota hospitals have been required to report such incidents. The 2021 report summarizes information about 508 adverse events that were reported, representing a significant increase in the year covered. Earlier reports document a fairly consistent count of adverse events. The rise reflected here is likely due to demands on staffing and care processes associated with COVID-19. Pressure ulcers and fall-related injuries were the most common incidents documented. Reports from previous years are available.

System failures require multifactorial assessment to install targeted improvements. This toolkit examines 10 areas of focus for organizations to assess the safety of mental health services in emergency and primary care settings to minimize patient suicide and self-harm. Areas of focus include post-discharge follow-up, admissions, and family engagement.