Improvement activities are complex initiatives that require synergistic actions by organizations to be sustained. This evolving "Elements" series provides background, evidence, and discussion on interdisciplinary strategies known to affect quality and safety such as implementation science, collaboration, positive deviance, and measuring improvement. The reports align with the strategic efforts of the THIS.Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute) aiming to improve health care through the creation of effective implementable evidence.

This global initiative raises awareness about hand hygiene as a strategy to reduce health care–associated infections. The initiative highlights Save Lives: Clean Your Hands, an annual promotional campaign that takes place on May 5. The theme for 2025 is "It might be gloves. It's always hand hygiene."

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices sponsors the annual Cheers Awards to recognize both individuals and institutions for their commitment to medication safety. The 2024 awards recognized David W. Bates MD for his dedication toward understanding adverse drug events to help drive improvement. The submissions for the 2025 award cycle has yet to open.

Patient safety progress is dynamic, consistently producing evidence for application to generate improvements. This report is the fourth in a series funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to track a prioritized set of emerging and existing safety approaches to confirm their value and effectiveness. This report will be compiled as new conclusions are formulated. Each review will be posted to the collection as they are completed. The first three Making Healthcare Safer reports, published in 2001, 2013, and 2020, have each served as a consolidated evidence source for clinicians, health system leadership, researchers, and government agencies. Chapter protocols and a summary of the first year's set of reports are available. 

Human factors engineering (HFE) is a primary strategy for advancing safety in health care. This virtual workshop will introduce HFE methods and discuss how they can be used to reduce risk through design improvements in a variety of process and interpersonal situations.

An organization’s understanding of its culture is foundational to patient safety. This webinar will introduce the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) program. The session covered the types of surveys and resources available to best use the data to facilitate conversations and comparisons to inform improvement efforts. 

The National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) are one of the major methods by which The Joint Commission establishes standards for ensuring patient safety in all health care settings. In order to ensure health care facilities focus on preventing major sources of patient harm, The Joint Commission regularly revises the NPSGs based on their impact, cost, and effectiveness. Major focus areas include promoting surgical safety, achieving health equity, and preventing hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, inpatient suicide, and specific clinical harms such as falls and pressure ulcers. The 2025 goals are now available.

Team training programs seek to improve communication and coordination among team members to reduce the potential for medical error. This virtual workshop will train participants to design, implement, and evaluate team training programs in their organizations based on the TeamSTEPPS model.