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Sentinel events are a primary indicator of patient safety in hospitals that enable learning through reporting to the Joint Commission. This website provides access to statistics, alerts, policies and tools to assist organizations in using sentinel events for their medical error reduction efforts.

In this annual publication, AHRQ reviews the results of the National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report. This 2021 report highlights that a wide range of quality measures have shown improvement in quality, access, and cost.

Successful patient safety improvements engage individuals across the continuum of care and administrative processes, including patients as advocates for change. This webinar highlighted the role of the patient in influencing legislation designed to affect systems of care to ensure safe practice.

Nursing homes harbor numerous challenges to patient safety and they should be transparently reported and acted upon to ensure improvement. This news investigation discusses a gap in the reporting and inspection of nursing home incidents that undermines the ability of the US nursing home rating system to inform consumer long term care facility choice.

In consultation with AHRQ, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services delivered a final report on effective strategies to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors to Congress. Required by the Patient Safety Act of 2005, the report was made available for public review and comment, and review by the National Academy of Medicine. It outlined several strategies to accelerate progress in improving patient safety, including using analytic approaches in patient safety research, measurement, and practice improvement to monitor risk; implementing evidence-based practices in real-world settings through clinically useful tools and infrastructure; encouraging the development of learning health systems that integrate continuous learning and improvement in day-to-day operations; and encouraging the use of patient safety strategies outlined in the National Action Plan by the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety.

Inspired by the research and leadership of Dr. Robert Wears, this award annually recognizes individuals, teams or organizations that examine the applications of safety science concepts to improve medicine. The deadline for submitting a 2022 award nomination is January 3, 2022.

Structural racism affects the safety and equity of care delivery. This report summarizes organizational efforts to reduce the impact of systemic racism on patient care, hiring practices, and policy implementation to ensure transparent, equitable and patient-centered care is reliably available to all.

The opioid epidemic has put regulatory and professional pressures on the tapering of pain medications that have had unintended consequences for patients resulting in harm. This news story discusses how one family used legal means to address systemic gaps and clinical missteps that resulted in patient suicide due to lack of appropriate pain control.

Nosocomial infection is a primary concern due to the COVID pandemic. This news story examines instances when inpatients contracted, and sometimes died of, COVID-19 while receiving care for a different condition. It summarizes the challenges associated with collecting adequate data that completely document nosocomial spread of COVID-19 and its impact on patient outcomes.

The Veterans Health Administration is a large complex system that faces various challenges to safe care provision. At this hearing, government administrators testified on current gaps that detract from safe care in the Veteran’s health system. The experts discussed several high-profile misconduct and systemic failure incidents, suggested that the culture and leadership within the system overall enables latency of issues, and outlined actions being taken to address weaknesses.

This report examines a premature infant death associated with failings of antibiotic administration, deterioration recognition and action on family concerns both during treatment and post-incident. The report issues a series of recommendations building on standard remediation guidance in the United Kingdom.

Nurses have a fundamental role in safe care delivery by fostering a healthy work environment. This award recognizes nurses that exhibit compassion, patient and family centeredness, and a commitment to workplace safety. The award will be presented at annual IHI Patient Safety Congress. The award nomination process is now closed.

This article highlights systems influences that detract from the effectiveness of current methods of reporting recalled unsafe medical devices and raising awareness of recalls for clinicians, patients and families. Challenges highlighted include the use of paper-based notification systems and data reporting delays.