Building on previous research on the use of text mining related to medication administration error incidents, researchers in this study found that artificial intelligence can be used to accurately classify the free text of medication incident reports causing serious or moderate harm, to identify target risk management areas.

Many strategies have been developed to improve recognition of, and response, to clinically deteriorating patients. This review found that simulation-based educational strategies was the most effective educational method for training staff to recognize unwell patients. However, the quality of evidence was low and additional research into simulation-based education is needed.

Misuse of prescription opioids represents a serious patient safety issue. Using commercial claims from 2014 - 2018, researchers examined the association between the 2016 CDC guidelines to reduce unsafe opioid prescribing and opioid dispensing for patients with four common chronic pain diagnoses. Findings indicate that the release of the 2016 guidelines was associated with reductions in the percentage of patients receiving opioids, average dose prescribed, percentage receiving high-dose prescriptions, number of days supplied, and the percentage of patients receiving concurrent opioid/benzodiazepine prescriptions. The authors observe that questions remain about how clinicians are tailoring opioid reductions using a patient-centered approach.

Patient safety incidents occurring in prehospital care settings are gaining increasing attention. This systematic review including both peer-reviewed studies and grey literature found that the incidence rate of prehospital patient safety incidents is similar to hospital rates. The authors identified an average of 5.9 patient safety incidents per 100 records/transports/patients occurring in prehospital care; approximately 15% of these incidents resulted in patient harm. The authors discuss methodological challenges to preshopital care research and make recommendations for future studies.

Diagnostic uncertainty can lead to misdiagnosis and delayed treatment. This article provides an overview of the literature on diagnosis-related uncertainty, where uncertainty occurs in the diagnostic process and outlines recommendations for managing diagnostic uncertainty.

Failure to rescue, the delayed or missed recognition of a potentially fatal complication that results in the patient’s death, is particularly tragic in obstetric care. Using the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework, the authors describe the work system, process, and outcomes related to failure to rescue, and develop intervention theories.

Nurse staffing levels have been shown to impact patient outcomes. Through an umbrella literature review and expert interviews, researchers developed a list of nurse-sensitive patient outcomes (NSPO). This list provides researchers potential avenues for future studies examining the link between nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes.

The care of child abuse victims is affected by resource, racial and infrastructure challenges. This commentary describes how the systemic weaknesses catalyzed by poor data collection approaches contribute to misdiagnosis and suggests that successes be mined to minimize the proliferation of continued disparities in this patient population.

This commentary discusses Dr. Lucian Leape’s new book and highlights the ongoing challenges to sustained quantifiable progress to improving patient safety, including misguided metrics, equipment design issues, persistence of fear and blame culture, burnout and shortages of nurses, primary care and other essential workers.

Patient complaints can identify opportunities for patient safety improvement. This study explored whether an existing tool for measuring the severity of patient complaints – the Healthcare Complaints Analysis Tool – can effectively analyze complaints specific to general practice. Key issues identified by the study involved relationships (e.g., communication, patient rights) as well as clinical and management issues.

Trigger tools are used as signals to detect potential adverse events. Using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Global Trigger Tool (GTT), one patient safety review team was unable to reproduce harm rates in a test-retest reliability study, suggesting the GTT may not be a reliable measure of harm over time. The team recommends additional test-retest studies in other hospitals.

Assessing safety climate is critical to understanding how organizational efforts can improve safety. This review identified deficiencies and inconsistencies in the way that safety climate has been conceptualized and measured. The authors underscore the importance of a consistent approach to measuring safety climate in order to evaluate its impact on patient safety outcomes.

Diagnostic errors in the acute care setting can result in increased morbidity and mortality. Using the Diagnostic Error Evaluation and Research (DEER) taxonomy, researchers reviewed 16 records of patients whose deaths were associated with at least one medical error. Most (81.3%) patients had at least one diagnostic error and a total of 113 failure points and 30 significant failure points.

Cognition is a recognized human factor that can contribute to medical error. This systematic review explored whether mindful practice can improve diagnosis in healthcare. Of the 33 included studies, the majority were non-empirical; however, the authors tentatively conclude that mindful practice may be a promising method to improve diagnostic accuracy and reduce error.

Safety gaps in mental health care offers a limited view if focused primarily on patient suicide. This commentary calls for Canadian psychiatric professionals to examine the safety of their patients from a system perspective to develop a research and practice improvement strategy.

Based on analysis of four years of data submitted to the Child Health Patient Safety Organization (CHILDPSO), researchers sought to identify types of serious safety events and contributing factors. Three main groups of serious safety events were identified: patient care management, procedural errors, and product or device errors. Contributing factors included lack of situational awareness, process failures, and failure to communicate effectively.

There are many challenges associated with detecting and measuring patient safety events. This meta-review provides an overview of approaches to measuring and monitoring safety in primary care. The authors suggest that instead of developing new methods for measuring and monitoring safety, researchers should focus on expanding the generalizability and comparability of existing methods, many of which are readily available, quick to administer, do not require external involvement, and are inexpensive.