The PSNet Collection

Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic to Improve Diagnosis. Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief.

Save to Library

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2022.

The COVID-19 crisis affected most health care processes, including diagnosis. This report recaps a session examining impacts of the pandemic on diagnostic approaches, inequities, and innovations that may inform future diagnostic improvement efforts.

Mind the Implementation Gap. The Persistence of Avoidable Harm in the NHS.

Save to Library

London UK: Patient Safety Learning: 2022.

Unsafe care affects a wide range of individuals and organizations physically, emotionally, and financially. This report examines large system failures in the UK National Health Service to suggest actions that support learning and improvement. The publication highlights how public investigations, government reports, legal actions, and patient complaints can provide information to support the systems approach required to arrive at safe care.

The Joint Commission's new and revised workplace violence prevention standards for hospitals: a major step forward toward improved quality and safety.

Save to Library

Arnetz JE. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2022;48(4):241-245.

Patient violence toward health care workers is a common, yet underreported, influence on care safety. This commentary summarizes policies in place to address patient violence and highlights Joint Commission standards developed to reduce the potential for violence in care environments. Improved reporting, organizational engagement, and safety culture development are among the strategies recommended.

How Discrimination in Health Care Affects Older Americans, and What Health Systems and Providers Can Do.

Save to Library

Doty MM, Horstman C, Shah A et al. Issue Brief. New York, NY: Commonwealth Fund: April 2022.

Bias in any form degrades the safety and effectiveness of communication and care. This report summarizes data documenting the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on older adult patients. It provides recommendations that include increasing content in medical school curriculum to raise awareness of biased medical care and tailoring communication needs to ethnic communities as steps toward reducing discrimination.

ISMP Guidelines for Sterile Compounding and the Safe Use of Sterile Compounding Technology.

Save to Library

Plymouth Meeting, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2022.

This updated report describes best practices to ensure safety when preparing sterile compounds, including pharmacist verification of orders entered into computerized provider order entry systems. The guidelines emphasize the role of technologies such as barcoding and robotic image recognition as approaches to enhance safety. In addition, it covers safe practices when technologies are not available.

Patient Safety Authority Annual Reports.

Save to Library

Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. Harrisburg, PA: Patient Safety Authority; April 2022.

This report summarizes patient safety improvement work in the state of Pennsylvania and reviews the 2021 activities of the Patient Safety Authority, including the Agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, video programs, liaison efforts, publication programs, and the launch of a new learning management system.

Final Report of the Ockenden Review.

Save to Library

London UK: Crown Copyright; March 30, 2022. ISBN: 9781528632294.

Maternal and baby harm in healthcare is a sentinel event manifested by systemic failure. This report serves as the final conclusions of an investigation into 250 cases at a National Health System (NHS) trust. The authors share overarching system improvement suggestions and high-priority recommendations to initiate NHS maternity care improvement.

The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality: Honoring Our Commitment to Residents, Families, and Staff.

Save to Library

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2022. ISBN: 9780309686259

Nursing homes face significant patient safety challenges, and these challenges became more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report identifies key issues in the delivery of care for nursing home residents and provides recommendations to strengthen the quality and safety of care delivery, such as improved working conditions, enhanced minimum staffing standards, improving quality measurement, and strengthening emergency preparedness.

Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2022.

Save to Library

ECRI. Plymouth Meeting, PA. March 2022.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated patient safety concerns. ECRI presents the top ten patient concerns for 2022, including staffing challenges, human factors in telehealth, and supply chain disruptions.

Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS) Medical Office Survey: 2022 User Database Report.

Save to Library

Famolaro T, Hare R, Tapia A, et al. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; March 2022. AHRQ Publication No. 22-0017.

The AHRQ Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture is designed to assess safety culture in outpatient clinics. The 2022 comparative data report includes data from 1,100 US medical offices and over 13,000 providers and staff. The highest-scoring composite measures are patient care tracking/follow-up and teamwork. Like the 2020 report, the lowest-scoring measure was work pressure and pace.

Improving Education—A Key to Better Diagnostic Outcomes.

Save to Library

Olson APJ, Danielson J, Stanley J, et al. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; March 2022. AHRQ Publication No. 22-0026-1-EF

Diagnostic skill development begins early in the education of health professionals. Advocates suggest that adjustments be made in curricula, instruction, and student assessment to address gaps in current educational methods and to enhance the team-focused diagnosis. This issue brief is part of a series on diagnostic safety.

Deficiencies after the New Electronic Health Record Go-Live at the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, WA.

Save to Library

Washington, DC: VA Office of Inspector General; March 17, 2022.

Electronic health record (EHR) implementation failures cause major disruptions to care delivery that can result in inefficiencies, misinformation, and unsafe care. This three-part investigation examines the impact of the new United States Veterans Affairs EHR system problems on medication management, care coordination, and problem reporting and resolution at one facility.

Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Summary Report: Evaluation of Mental Health in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal Year 2020.

Save to Library

Washington, DC: VA Office of the Inspector General; February 17, 2022. Report No. 21-01506-76.

Patient suicide is a reoccurring sentinel event that is a challenge for the veteran’s health care community. This report shares the results of 36 unplanned inspections at United States Veterans Affairs facilities. While the inspections found general guidance compliance to be in place, weaknesses in required patient follow-up, staff training and outreach activities were flagged as areas in need of targeted improvement to enhance patient safety.

Maternity Pre-arrival Instructions by 999 Call Handlers.

Save to Library

Farnborough, UK: Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch; February 17, 2022.

Pre-hospital emergency care can be vulnerable to timing, information, and task failures that compromise safety. This investigation explores how computerized decision support system access played a roles in an emergency call-center program incident where erroneous information was transmitted to a pregnant patient that contributed to infant harm.

Caring for Those Who Care: Guide for the Development and Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety Programmes for Health Workers.

Save to Library

Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization and International Labour Organization; 2022. ISBN 9789240040779.

Workforce well-being emerged as a key component of patient safety during the COVID-19 crisis. This report supplies international perspectives for informing the establishment of national regulations and organization-based programs to strengthen efforts aiming to develop health industry workforce health and safety strategies.

Telemedicine: Ensuring Safe, Equitable, Person-Centered Virtual Care.

Save to Library

Perry AF, Federico F, Huebner J. Boston, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement; 2021.

The emergence of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic has situated it to become an accepted model for health service provision despite safety concerns. This white paper discusses a 6-item framework to enhance the safety, equity, and person-centeredness of telemedicine and recommendations for embedding safer methods into telemedicine practice.

Achieving Excellence in Cancer Diagnosis: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief.

Save to Library

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2022.

Diagnostic errors remain an ongoing challenge in many medical specialties, including oncology. This workshop reviewed the evidence base examining challenges in cancer diagnosis, discussed suggestions for improvement in the field, and looked toward a safer future for cancer patients.

Weight-based Medication Errors in Children.

Save to Library

Farnborough, UK: Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch; February 2, 2022.

Weight-calculation errors can result in pediatric patient harm as they affect medication prescribing, dispensing, and administration accuracy. This report examines factors contributing to a computation mistake that resulted in a child receiving a 10-fold anticoagulant overdose over a 3-day period. Areas of focus for improvement include use of prescribing technology, and the double-check as an error barrier.

AMA Prior Authorization (PA) Physician Survey.

Save to Library

Chicago, IL: American Medical Association; February 2022.

Insurance policies can have consequences that reduce the safety of medical care. This latest version of the study surveyed 1000 physicians in 2021 to find that prior authorization requirements contributed to patient harm or potentially preventable hospitalization 34 percent of the time.

Targeted Medication Safety Best Practices for Hospitals.

Save to Library

Horsham, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2022.

This updated report outlines 19 consensus-based best practices to ensure safe medication administration, such as diluted solutions of vincristine in minibags and standardized metrics for patient weight. The set of recommended practices has been reviewed and updated every two years since it was first developed in 2014 to include actions related to eliminating the prescribing of fentanyl patches for acute pain and use of information about medication safety risks from other organizations to motivate improvement efforts. The 2022 update includes new practices that are associated with oxytocin, barcode verification in vaccine administration, and high-alert medications.

All Content

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

All Content

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

PSNet Log in

Submit Your Case

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Case

Continue as a Guest

Already have a PSNet

Account?

New Users