This annual report summarizes never events in Maryland hospitals over the previous year. During fiscal year 2022, reported events increased due to the COVID pandemic, workforce shortages and other system demands. Events contributing to patient deaths and severe harm from preventable medical errors during the time period doubled. The authors recommend several corrective actions to enhance improvement work, including board and executive leadership engagement in safety work and application of high-reliability concepts to enhance safety culture.

Cancer test communication failures can contribute to physical, emotional, and financial patient harm. This report examines missed opportunities made by multiple clinicians involved in the care of a patient with prostate cancer who then died from metastasized disease. Seven recommendations are included for improving abnormal test result communication and error management at the facility.

This investigation examined care coordination, screening and other factors that contributed to a patient death by suicide shortly after discharge from a Veteran’s Hospital. Event reporting, disclosure and evaluation gaps were identified as process weaknesses to be addressed. 

Discontinuities in mental health care are a patient safety concern. This report analyzes how documentation gaps, medication reconciliation problems, and poor care coordination contributed to the suicide of a patient who presented at an emergency room, was screened there, and referred to a clinic for further care that was not completed.

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.

This analysis found that scheduling problems among patients seeking primary care from Veterans Affairs health systems continue to occur. The report outlines weaknesses in the data collected to measure and evaluate veterans' access to primary care and spotlights the need to develop and disseminate a comprehensive policy for Veterans Affairs schedulers to reduce risk of scheduling errors.

Misrepresentation of findings, either by accident or design, can result in ineffective use of resources and poor decision-making. This investigation found inconsistencies in the information reported by the Veterans Health Administration in the widely-publicized analysis discussing weaknesses in the organization that resulted in delayed care. The author calls for the assessment to be revisited to ensure conclusions and work toward improvement are verifiable to augment the safety and timeliness of care provided to veterans.

A previous report by the Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General found that many veterans at the Phoenix VA facility endured months-long waits for primary care appointments, due in part to inappropriate manipulation of the scheduling process so that the facility could appear to meet VA quality metrics. This follow-up report examined whether these delays led to patients experiencing preventable harm and further investigated the root causes of excessive wait times and the generalizability of the problem across the VA system. The investigators concluded that no deaths or serious harm could be directly attributed to the scheduling delays; however, the report uncovered many examples of poor quality care, including delayed diagnoses of cancer, preventable readmissions, and poor care coordination. It also appears that scheduling manipulation was rife throughout the system. The report strongly attributes the "corrosive culture" of the VA and its unresponsive leadership as major factors in the system's failure to address longstanding problems with access to care. Though the VA has achieved impressive accomplishments in providing high-quality care, the scheduling scandal has caused serious damage to its reputation. A recent commentary by Dr. Kenneth Kizer (who, as Undersecretary for Health in the VA, was widely credited for reforming the VA in the 1990s) and Dr. Ashish Jha recommends several reforms the VA should implement to transform its culture and restore its standards.

This book covers how to investigate patient safety incidents while simultaneously providing support for second victims.

This government report reveals the need for a policy to ensure that veterans' medication needs are safely managed during transitions between health care providers.

The quality of care delivered at US hospitals continues to improve, according to data gathered by the Joint Commission from nearly 1,500 institutions. Hospitals improved their provision of evidence-based care for patients with heart attacks, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia, and also improved at prevention of health care–associated infections in surgical patients. As in previous reports, adherence to the National Patient Safety Goals was more mixed. Although performance improved in some areas (including medication reconciliation and eliminating "do not use" abbreviations), many hospitals do not systematically perform time outs prior to procedures, or have reliable mechanisms for communicating critical test results.