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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 555 Results
Ravindran S, Matharoo M, Rutter MD, et al. Endoscopy. 2023;Epub Sept 18.
Understanding the influence of human factors on team and system performance can help safety professionals identify opportunities for improvement. In this study, researchers used a large, centralized incident reporting database in the United Kingdom to examine the human factors contributing to non-procedural endoscopy-related patient safety incidents. Based on Human Factors Analysis and Classification System coding, decision-based errors were the most common factor contributing to incidents, but other contributing factors were also identified, including lack of resources and ineffective team communication.
Roussel M, Teissandier D, Yordanov Y, et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2023;Epub Nov 6.
Overcrowding in the emergency department (ED) can result in long wait times to be seen or admitted, as well as placing patients at increased risk of adverse events. In this prospective study, researchers compared the risk of in-hospital mortality among older patients who spent a night in the ED waiting for admission to the hospital versus older patients who were admitted to the hospital before midnight. Findings indicate that patients who spent an overnight in the ED had a higher in-hospital mortality rate, increased risk of adverse events, and longer length of stay; this risk was exacerbated for patients with limited functional status.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Clinician burnout has become a major concern for both healthcare workforce and patient safety. This portal provides access to tools to support organizational efforts to address the latent factors contributing to burnout such as well-being assessments and mental health access for clinicians improvement strategies.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; September 2023. AHRQ Publication no. 23-0055.

Falls are a frequently reported sentinel event. This Data Spotlight from AHRQ’s Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD) highlights the most common interventions in place among patients who experienced a fall such as nonslip wear, bed height and visible risk identification. Data for the analysis includes reports on patient safety concerns submitted from 2009 through 2021.
Porter TH, Peck JA, Bolwell B, et al. BMJ Lead. 2023;7:196-202.
Authentic leadership principles emphasize the influence of positive psychological capacities to foster self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors. This qualitative study used podcast transcripts to explore the experiences of senior leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of authentic leadership principles. The researchers identified several behaviors demonstrating authentic leadership and discuss its influence of psychological safety, particularly during a crisis.
MohammadiGorji S, Joseph A, Mihandoust S, et al. HERD. 2023;Epub Aug 8.
Well-designed workspaces minimize disruptions and distractions. This review and study describes several important ways to improve the anesthesia workspace in the operating room. Recommendations include demarcating an anesthesia zone with adequate space for equipment and storage and that restricts unnecessary staff travel into and through the zone. Each recommendation includes an illustrative diagram, explains its importance, and offers methods to achieve it.
Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2023;Epub Oct 18.
Surgical fires are a rare yet potentially harmful event for both patients and care teams. The alert provides reduction guidance for organizations to mitigate conditions that enable surgical fires and suggests tactics to improve communication as a primary strategy for preventing this potentially catastrophic accident in operating rooms.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: November 2023.

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 the results of an examination on patient and family engagement and report cards as a surgical improvement mechanism are now available. 
Pogorzelska-Maziarz M, de Cordova PB, Manning ML, et al. Am J Infect Control. 2023;Epub Aug 23.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted systemic weaknesses in the healthcare system. This survey of 3,067 registered nurses working in New Jersey used the Donabedian framework to identify challenges related to providing safe care during the pandemic. Respondents identified several organizational factors, including inadequate resources and staffing, which adversely impacted their ability to adhere to patient safety and infection prevention and control protocols during the pandemic.

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. October 19, 2023;28(21):1-4.

Process disconnects can cause administration mistakes that lead to harm. This article discusses reasons for holding medications and how workflow issues can contribute to medication temporary stop order problems. Recommendations for improvement include examining electronic health record alerts, assigning one prescriber to oversee medication reconciliation, and instituting a policy on hold orders.
Perspective on Safety October 31, 2023

This piece focuses on workplace violence trends in healthcare settings and strategies for creating a safer healthcare environment.

This piece focuses on workplace violence trends in healthcare settings and strategies for creating a safer healthcare environment.

Cheryl B. Jones

Editor’s note: Cheryl B. Jones is a professor, director of the Hillman Scholars Program, and interim associate dean of the School of Nursing’s PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We spoke to her about workplace violence trends in healthcare settings and how we can create a safer work environment for healthcare staff.

Labrague LJ. Leadersh Health Serv (Bradf Engl). 2023;Epub Oct 9.
Leadership behaviors have an important impact on the workforce and work environment in both positive and negative ways. This review summarizes how toxic leadership impacts the nursing workforce and patient safety. Within the patient safety theme, toxic leadership was significantly associated with increased falls, nosocomial infections, and medication errors.
Gandhi TK, Schulson LB, Thomas AD. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2023;Epub Sept 12.
Safety event reporting from both providers and patients is subject to bias. The authors of this commentary present several ways bias is introduced into reporting and offers strategies to ensure events are reported and analyzed in an equitable manner.
Wang B, Li D, Wang Y. J Contingencies Crisis Manag. 2023;Epub Oct 4.
Healthcare workers often must deliver care during complex situations. Using insights from safety science and political/social perspectives, the authors outline a new evidence-informed crisis learning framework. They use two sets of crisis event cases to describe how this framework can be used to examine the underlying causes and implications of the crises, which can inform strategies to promote safe patient care in the midst of complex, emergent situations.
Marlett JE, Vacovsky BA, Krug EA, et al. Worldviews Evid Based Nurs. 2023;Epub Sep 30.
Elopement represents a serious threat to patient safety and requires a system-wide, organized response. This article describes the development and implementation of an organizational elopement management plan featuring an elopement risk evaluation and elopement response algorithm. After implementation, the number of elopements occurring over a six-month period decreased from 34 to 12 events and the average duration of each event decreased from 118 minutes to 24 minutes.
Liberati EG, Martin GP, Lamé G, et al. BMJ Qual Saf. 2023;Epub Sep 21.
“Safety cases” are used in healthcare and other industries to communicate the safety of a product, system, or service. In this study, researchers use the “safety case” approach to evaluate the safety of the Safer Clinical Systems program, which is designed to improve the safety and reliability of clinical pathways.  
Herrera H, Wood D. Crit Care Nurs Clin North Am. 2023;35:347-355.
Children in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) require constant monitoring to detect early signs of worsening conditions. While these alerts from the monitors allow nurses and other staff to quickly intervene, alarm fatigue may set in, resulting in delayed responses. This article describes several causes for nonactionable or false alarms and makes recommendations to address them.
Cullati S, Semmer NK, Tschan F, et al. Int J Public Health. 2023;68:1606078.
Illegitimate tasks are those that workers think they should not have to perform, either because they are unnecessary or not part of their specific role. In this study with hospital nurses, physicians, and other direct and indirect healthcare staff, 20% reported illegitimate tasks occurred frequently in their setting. Although respondents were not asked to specify illegitimate tasks, the authors hypothesize that physicians, who reported the highest prevalence of frequency of illegitimate tasks, may perceive "administrative" tasks as illegitimate.
Eldor L, Hodor M, Cappelli P. Org Behav Human Decision Proc. 2023;177:104255.
Psychological safety is the idea that team members can take risks, such as voicing concerns or putting forth innovative ideas, and is considered a vital part of robust safety culture. This article describes the relationship between psychological safety and in-role performance in nursing and four other organizational settings. Results suggest routine task performance increases with psychological safety only to a point, then declines. The authors describe collective accountability to offset the decline in task performance.
Parry D, Odedra A, Fagbohun M, et al. Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2023;61:509-513.
Misleading or unclear abbreviations can cause communication errors and threaten patient safety. This article highlights how lessons learned regarding abbreviations in aviation can apply to healthcare to avoid abbreviation-related medical errors, such as prescribing errors.