The National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) are one of the major methods by which The Joint Commission establishes standards for ensuring patient safety in all health care settings. In order to ensure health care facilities focus on preventing major sources of patient harm, The Joint Commission regularly revises the NPSGs based on their impact, cost, and effectiveness. Major focus areas include promoting surgical safety, achieving health equity, and preventing hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, inpatient suicide, and specific clinical harms such as falls and pressure ulcers. The 2024 goals are now available.

The National Quality Forum has defined 29 never events—patient safety problems that should never occur, such as wrong-site surgery. Since 2003, Minnesota hospitals have been required to report such incidents. The 2022 report summarizes information about 572 adverse events that were reported, representing a significant increase in the year covered. Earlier reports prior to the last two years reflect a fairly consistent count of adverse events. The rise documented here is likely due to demands on staffing and care processes associated with COVID-19 and general increases in patient complexity and subsequent length of stay. Pressure ulcers and fall-related injuries were the most common incidents recorded. Reports from previous years are available.

This site provides promotional materials and registration information for an awareness campaign on patient safety that takes place in the autumn. The annual observance will take place October 23-27, 2023.

Standardized medication labels have been shown to increase patient comprehension and adherence. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing a rule which, if approved, would require an easily understandable, one-page medication guide be given to patients when receiving medication in the outpatient setting. Written comments may be submitted through November 27, 2023.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are a persistent challenge in hospitals. This project will support the implementation of targeted hospital-acquired infection prevention initiatives building on the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) concept. The cohort that is focused on long-term care is currently recruiting participants. 

In this annual publication, AHRQ reviews the results of the National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report. The 2022 report discusses a decrease in life expectancy due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reviews the current status of special areas of interest such as maternity care, child and adolescent mental health, and substance abuse disorders. 

The AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Community Pharmacy Survey and accompanying toolkit were developed to collect opinions of community pharmacy staff on the safety culture at their pharmacies.

Recalls of medications due to labeling errors are an established approach to minimize the potential for harm. This announcement highlights a labeling mistake with hypertension and antiplatelet medications that could result in dose omissions or bleeding risk.

Leadership commitment to reduce medication errors can help address this safety problem. This certificate program presents key concepts that support organizational efforts to augment medication safety, including event analysis, safety culture, risk identification, and change management.

This guidance outlines design elements that reduce errors associated with medication labels. Improvements suggested include tall-man lettering use, look-alike / sound alike avoidance and abbreviation minimization.

Maternal harm during and after pregnancy is a sentinel event. This campaign encourages women, families, and health providers to identify and speak up with concerns about maternal care and act on them. The program seeks to inform the design of support systems and tool development that enhance maternal safety.

The 2016 Centers for Disease Control opioid guidelines have raised concerns as to their potential to contribute to patient harm. This announcement calls for comments from the field to inform and update current policy in response to safety issues that emerged as unintended consequences of the 2016 recommendation. Comments are due to be submitted by April 11, 2022.

Detailing results of an error reporting initiative in New Jersey, these reports explain how consumers can use this information and provides tips for safety when obtaining health care. A section highlights findings related to patient safety indicators.

This annual analysis explores rates of health care-associated infections (HAIs) reported in the United States. Data from 2020 revealed increases in central line–associated bloodstream infections and other infections while a decrease in surgical site infections. The current report also discusses the impact of COVID-19 on reporting and data submission efforts.