The issue of system versus individual accountability can challenge the orientation of safety improvement efforts. This opinion piece discusses the importance of physician recognition of decision making mistakes and the downside of the evolution of morbidity and mortality conferences away from that approach.

Disrespectful behavior is a persistent contributor to failures in medical care. This article summarizes influences that enable the acceptance and perpetuation of unprofessional behaviors and calls for data to assess its presence and impact in health care environments. The deadline for survey participation is now closed.

COVID-19 has increased uncertainties in sectors across health care. This article discusses a variety of supply-chain factors that impact medication availability. The author suggests roles for pharmacists in antibiotic stewardship and policy implementation to manage shortages safely.

High-alert medications have the potential to cause serious patient harm if not administered correctly. Reporting on challenges to medication safety in the context of home, hospital, and cancer care, this news article recommends patient and health care professional education and support for collaboration with pharmacists as avenues for improvement.

Having family members or patient advocates present during hospitalizations can help prevent errors. This newsletter article suggests that utilizing this risk prevention strategy in peripheral care areas such as radiology and other testing units could also prevent patient harm. Recommendations to ensure success of this approach include communicating with advocates, encouraging them to speak up, and activating a rapid response to patient deterioration.

This newsletter article discusses nurse burnout and how to reduce conditions that contribute to the problem. Recommendations focus on the role of leadership in fostering resilience, organizational strategies to enhance nurse empowerment, and frontline learning and regular measurement of staff perceptions of their well-being at work.

Pediatric cardiac surgery is highly technical and risky. This newspaper article reports on a poorly performing pediatric cardiac surgery program, concerns raised by staff, and insufficient response from organizational leadership. Lack of data transparency, insufficient resources, and limited program capabilities to support a complex program contributed to poor outcomes for pediatric patients.

Nuisance alarms, interruptions, and insufficient staff availability can hinder effective monitoring and response to acute patient deterioration. This news article reports on how hospital logistics centers are working toward utilizing artificial intelligence to improve clinician response to alarms by proactively identifying hospitalized patients at the highest risk for heart failure to trigger emergency response teams when their condition rapidly declines.

Fatigue, emotional stress, and illness can affect decision-making and lead to misuse of medications. This newsletter article describes the patient safety impacts of drug diversion among health care workers and notes the importance of a culture of constructive reporting to uncover and address this unsafe behavior.

Reporting on the criminal indictment of a nurse involved in the death of a patient, this newsletter article reviews factors that contributed to the failure, urges leadership to modify the use of blame tactics in response to medical mistakes, and highlights guidelines to prevent similar incidents.

This news article reports on the documentary To Err Is Human, which was produced and directed by the son of patient safety leader Dr. John M. Eisenberg. The film is structured around patient safety advocate Sue Sheridan's experience with diagnostic errors that resulted in harm for both her son and husband. It features a wide range of experts who discuss the impact of error on all involved, the role of culture in facilitating both mistakes and progress, and why continued work in health care safety is needed.

Medication safety officers serve as organizational champions of medication management process improvement. This news article offers two examples of health care organizations that positioned medication safety officers as leaders in their systems. The piece describes improvements stemming from employment of medication safety officers at these organizations.

Frontline leadership should model just culture behaviors to encourage reporting and discussion of error to facilitate improvement. This news article uses a medical administration error to examine whether human error, at-risk behavior, or reckless action on the part of a clinician led to the mistake and explores leadership response to the incident to determine accountability in each type of situation.