Patients are increasingly able to access their health record via electronic patient portals and many report finding errors in the record. This study asked adolescent (ages 15-19) patient portal users if they had identified errors or omissions in their record, and if so, did they report them to their provider. Approximately one-quarter of patients identified an error and 20% identified an omission. The majority of those patients did not report it to the clinic or healthcare provider.

Near-misses or “good catches” are incidents that could have resulted in patient harm but did not due to it being caught at the last minute or through sheer luck. Reporting near-misses can help organizations learn and enact changes if necessary, but near-misses are not frequently reported. This study presents enablers and barriers to reporting near-misses.

Following the 2013 release of the Report of The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust inquiry, National Health Service (NHS) Trusts have made substantial efforts to increase staffs’ willingness to speak up about patient safety concerns. One method is the creation of confidential resources who provide staff support: Freedom to Speak Up Guardians (FTSUG) and Confidential Contacts (CC). This study explored perspectives of FTSUG and CC on how they best support staff and how leaders can encourage speaking up behavior.

Patients expect to "feel safe" in healthcare settings. This concept analysis describes defining attributes (participation, control, presence) of patients in the perioperative environment. Through a series of cases that include all, some, or none of the safety attributes, the authors illustrate the concept of patients "feeling safe" in the perioperative environment.

Best practices for treating patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) include prescribing medications to treat OUD (naltrexone, naloxone, or buprenorphine) and limiting prescriptions of high-risk medications (opioid analgesics and benzodiazepines). This study of more than 23,000 patients with an index event related to OUD sought to determine racial and ethnic differences in safe prescribing. White patients were significantly more likely to receive buprenorphine and less likely to receive high-risk medications than Black or Hispanic patients in the 180 days after the index event. This difference persisted over the four-year study period.

Miscommunication between healthcare providers can contribute to adverse events, but communication may be improved by strengthening psychological safety. This paper describes two studies on the association of communication, patient safety threats, and higher quality care and the mediating effect of psychological safety in obstetrical care. Results suggest psychological safety mediates the association of communication with quality of care and patient safety.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients may experience poor quality of healthcare due to stigma and discrimination. This qualitative study explored diagnostic challenges and the impact of diagnostic errors among 20 participants identifying as sexual minorities and/or gender minorities. Participants attribute diagnostic error to provider-level and personal challenges and how diagnostic error worsened health outcomes and led to disengagement from healthcare. The authors of this article also summarize patient-proposed solutions to diagnostic error through the use of inclusive language, increasing education and training on SGM topics, and inclusion of more SGM individuals in healthcare.

Psychological safety and willingness to speak up about safety concerns are cornerstone to safety culture. Using four clinical vignettes that described the same case in the Emergency Department but differed with respect to whether a nurse spoke up with treatment-related concerns or remained silent, researchers examined healthcare team members’ perspectives of psychological safety and discussed the importance of organizational and team leadership that encourages and supports speaking up behaviors.

Structural racism and implicit biases can affect clinical judgement and impede the delivery of effective mental health care. Based on a case of an adolescent Black girl navigating through the pediatric behavioral health system, this article discusses how structural racism and health disparities in behavioral health care contributed to misdiagnosis and poor care. The authors outline several actions at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal levels to address racism’s impact on pediatric mental and behavioral healthcare.

Verbal or physical violence towards healthcare workers can result in harm of both staff and patients. Based on semi-structured interviews with 25 registered nurses working in the emergency department (ED) at one large academic health system, the authors explored nursing perspectives on how EHR-based behavioral flags – used to identify incidents of workplace violence – can promote clinician safety. Participants identified benefits of the flags as well as concerns (e.g., introduction of bias, potential damage to the patient-clinician relationship), highlighted necessary system improvements, and how related challenges in the ED (e.g., unmet mental health needs of patients, COVID-19-related burnout) can contribute to workplace violence.

Racism and implicit biases can threaten the safety of care. The authors in this article outline how implicit bias can affect health professional trainees and impact patient care in obstetrics and gynecology, and outlines strategies to address implicit bias through bias awareness and management curricula, ensuring a supportive learning environment, and faculty development.