Telehealth is becoming a standard care mechanism due to COVID-19 concerns. This special issue brief discusses telediagnosis, shares system and associate factors affecting its reliability, challenges in adopting this mode of practice, and areas of research needed to fully understand its impact. This issue brief is part of a series on diagnostic safety.

This newly issued follow up to the seminal AHRQ Making Health Care Safer report (first published in 2001 and updated in 2013 critically examines the evidence supporting 47 separate patient safety practices chosen for the high-impact harms they address. It includes diagnostic errors, failure to rescue, sepsis, infections due to multi-drug resistant organisms, adverse drug events and nursing-sensitive conditions. The report discusses the evidence on cross-cutting safety practices, including safety culture, teamwork and team training, clinical decision support, patient and family engagement, cultural competency, staff education and training, and monitoring, audit and feedback. The report provides recommendations for clinicians and decision-makers on effective patient safety practices.

Surgical specimen and laboratory process problems can affect diagnosis. This publication examines factors that contribute to errors across the surgical pathology process and reviews strategies to reduce their impact on care. Chapters discuss areas of focus to encourage process improvement and error response, such as information technology, specimen tracking, root cause analysis, and disclosure.

Drug dispensing systems have been adopted in hospitals to prevent medication errors, but accidents associated with their use still occur. This report provides comprehensive guidelines on the safe use of automated dispensing cabinets. Recommendations include improvement in areas such as stocking, labeling, and removal of expired medications.

Programs are in place to address hospital discharge process gaps that contribute to readmissions. This report summarizes research on primary care perspectives on reducing readmissions. Interventions identified include automated alerting to primary care providers when patients are hospitalized and the patient-centered medical home model.

Despite enhancements in medical imaging technology, diagnostic radiologists are still susceptible to uncertainty, bias, and overconfidence that hinder accurate image assessment. Discussing the scope and impact of human error in diagnostic radiology, this book explores the future of advanced information technologies in diagnostic radiology and provides recommendations to reduce the effect of human fallibility on imaging interpretation.

This book explores how advancements in technology can improve decision making but may also diminish patient-centered care. The author discusses the potential of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to enhance diagnosis and care delivery. A past PSNet interview with the author, Eric Topol, talked about the role of patients in the new world of digital health care.

Record matching problems can have serious clinical impacts on patients. This report explores how to optimize demographic data integrity to improve patient record matching, as identifying information is increasingly integrated into shared record keeping systems. The investigation determined strategies to improve matching such as implementing standard data formats and disseminating best practices.

Information technology is prevalent in health care and is associated with both optimized processes and unintended consequences. This publication is a compilation of papers from an international conference that explored the potential of health information technology and the research needed to achieve success. Topics covered include usability, implementation, interoperability, and policy.

Clinician well-being affects the safety of the care environment. This publication suggests that the ramifications of physician burnout are a public health concern. The report provides an overview of the burnout crisis and recommends strategies to address the problem, including mental health initiatives, electronic health record enhancements, and appointment of chief wellness officers.

Clinician burnout is a persistent threat to patient safety, and electronic health records have been identified as a high-profile contributor to the problem. This call for public comments on a draft report seeks insights on specific goals and recommended strategies to address the issue. The approaches outlined focus on reducing the time burden associated with frontline electronic health record use. The option for submitting comments is closed.

Chronic disease management can add complexity to inpatient care regimens. Researchers worked with patients, system leaders, and clinicians to examine areas of risk for hospitalized patients with diabetes and determine solutions such as specialized teams, clinical leadership, and improved use of technology. A WebM&M commentary illustrated safety challenges associated with providing care for hospitalized patients with diabetes.

Inadequate follow-up of test results can contribute to missed and delayed diagnoses. Developing optimal test result management systems is essential for closing the loop so that results can be acted upon in a timely manner. The Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety convened a working group to identify how technology can be used to facilitate improved communication and timely action regarding test results. This report summarizes the methods used by the working group and their findings. Recommendations include improving communication by standardizing the format of test results, including required timing for diagnostic testing responses, automating the notification process in electronic health records, and optimizing alerts to reduce alert fatigue. A past WebM&M commentary discussed a case involving ambulatory test result management.

The usability of health information technologies (IT) is a key component to their safe effective use. This report introduces problems that surface due to poor design of health IT systems, summarizes expert opinion on the role of system usability in patient safety, and describes an approach to monitor and improve the safety of health IT by engaging multistakeholder collaboration.