All Content

Intravenous admixture compounding is a complex activity that harbors risks for patients and health care staff.  This two-part series reviews the types of errors that compromise the safety of compounding practices, steps in the process where they occur and prevention tactics.

Surgical patients are at high risk for harm, should errors occur. This special issue covers areas of concern in perioperative anesthesia care that include patient allergies, age, sex and gender considerations, and incident reporting system effectiveness.

Otolaryngology-head and neck surgery is vulnerable to wrong site errors and other challenges present in surgical care. This series of articles highlights key areas of importance for the specialty as they work to enhance patient safety. The 2022 installment covers the role of simulation.

Medical training is a demanding experience that impacts a learner’s ability to provide safe care, cope, and remain healthy. This issue covers a range of topics exploring the mental health consequences of residency, factors influencing well-being, and approaches to help individuals successfully navigate the stress of residency.

The field of anesthesiology has realized impressive improvements in safety, yet challenges still exist in its practice. This special issue provides discussions on a variety of concerns that require continued effort, including use of early warning scores, differences associated with sex and gender, and use of incident reporting systems.

Medication safety is improved through the sharing of frontline improvement experiences and concerns. These articles share recommendations to reduce risks associated with distinct areas of the medication use process. The topics discuss areas that require specific attention during the COVID-19 pandemic such as the use of smart pumps and automated dispensing cabinets.

Incomplete nursing care is known to affect care quality and safety. This special issue documents the global problem of missed or rationed nursing care in a variety of settings and countries. Articles featured in this special issue examine systemic issues, explore interventions, and evaluate measurement tools.

The complexity of care delivery requires complementary approaches to prevent mistakes. This special section shares clinical and organizational tactics to address anesthesiology safety issues. They include automation failures, the role of the obstetric anesthesiologist in maternal safety, and monitoring effectiveness. 

COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that harbors a variety of diagnostic, treatment, and management hurdles. This special issue covers a variety of clinical topics including optimal diagnostic methods, near misses, and diagnostic accuracy.   

Anesthesiology critical events are uncommon, and yet they have great potential for harm. This special issue focuses on management of, and preparation for, perioperative critical events and rescue should they occur. The authors highlight simulation training, debriefing, and cognitive aids as methods for improving safety in the operating room.

High reliability attainment is a stated goal for health care organizations. This special issue covers established initiatives at the United States Veterans Health Administration that draw from high reliability principles to improve care. Topics covered include evaluation priorities, safe patient handling and diagnostic safety.

Challenges to effective clinical reasoning reduce diagnostic accuracy. This special issue provides background for a new approach to clinical reasoning: situativity. The articles explore the four complementary facets of the concept -- situated cognition; distributed cognition; embodied cognition; and ecological psychology – and describes how situativity can enhance diagnosis through a holistic approach to education, assessment, and research.    

Simulation is a recognized technique to educate and plan to improve care processes and safety. This pair of special issues highlights the use of simulation in nursing and its value in work such as communication enhancement, minority population care, and patient deterioration.   

Research and error reporting are important strategies to uncover problems in health system performance. This special issue highlights vendor transparency and context as important areas of focus to ensure electronic health records (EHR) research and reporting help improve system reliability. The articles cover topics such as a framework for research reporting, design of randomized controlled trials for technology studies, and designing research on patient portal enhancement.

Quality and safety are often intertwined in large improvement efforts. This special issue outlies the results of a 5-year examination of 32 hospitals across Australia and its territories. The culture of organizations, assessing that culture from the leadership, patient and clinician perspectives and adopting a “Safety II” approach can impact conditions that affect quality and safety.

Articles in this special issue report on initiatives undertaken by the Canadian National Patient Safety Consortium with a focus on the effect patient partnerships on initiative priority areas including never events, safety culture and homecare safety improvements.

Informatics and simulation are core contributors to the reduction of medical system failures. This special issue examined how these ideas merge to create opportunities for improvement. Care management and adverse incident prevention are two areas of focus explored in the issue.   

The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a complex environment that serves a vulnerable population at increased risk for harm should errors occur. This special issue draws from a multidisciplinary set of authors to explore patient safety issues arising in the NICU. Included in the issue are articles examining topic such as video assessment, diagnostic error, and human factors engineering in the NICU.

The States Targeting Reduction in Infections via Engagement (STRIVE) initiative was 3-year hospital-based program using a multimodal, evidence-based intervention targeted at reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and strengthening state-hospital relationships to improve infection control efforts. The intervention recruited hospitals with a high burden of HAI; a total of 337 hospitals across 23 states and the District of Columbia participated in the program. The STRIVE intervention consistent of four components: (1) baseline assessment of each participating hospital conducted by a state partner, (2) tiered approach to HAI prevention, (3) educational content, and (4) on-site technical assistance. PubMed citations Central-line Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI) Over the three-year study period, no substantial reduction in CLABSI rates were observed; unadjusted rates decreased from 0.88 to 0.80 infections per 1,000 catheter-days. The authors did observe reductions in central-line catheter use during the study period (24.05 to 22.07 central line-days per 100 patient-days); however, this trend was also documented in the pre-intervention period. Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) Baseline CAUTI rates at participating hospitals were low. Over the three-year study period, the unadjusted CAUTI rate decreased slightly; unadjusted rates decreased from 1.12 to 1.04 infections per 1,000 catheter-days. Unadjusted urinary catheter use decreased from 21.46 to 19.83 catheter-days per 100 patient-days. Clostridioides Difficile Infection (CDI) The authors observed a statistically significant reduction in Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) over the three-year period, from 7.0 cases days to 5.7 cases per 10,000 patient-days. However, these decreases mirrored national trends in CDI reduction and are likely attributed to recent emphasis on CDI clinical guidelines, mandated CDI reporting, and the inclusion in value-based purchasing, rather than the STRIVE intervention. Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) Infection. Baseline MRSA rates at participating hospitals were low. Over the three-year period, the unadjusted MRSA rate decreased slightly from 0.075 to 0.071 cases per 1,000 patient-days. State Partner Relationships and HAI Prevention Efforts While STRIVE did not result in quantitative improvements in CAUDI, CLABSI, CDI or MRSA rates, the initiative did strengthen relationships between hospitals and state health departments. Through the baseline assessment, state partners were able to identify gaps in HAI prevention efforts and opportunities to improve partner-hospital relationships. State partners also reported improvements in hospital-level prevention activities over the three-year period, as well as improvements to state partner-hospital relationships.