The AHRQ PSNet Collection comprises an extensive selection of resources relevant to the patient safety community. These resources come in a variety of formats, including literature, research, tools, and Web sites. Resources are identified using the National Library of Medicine’s Medline database, various news and content aggregators, and the expertise of the AHRQ PSNet editorial and technical teams.
The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority is a long-established source of patient safety data analysis and application-focused commentary. Their publishing output aims to generate improvements in their state as well as throughout health care. This open-access publication replaces the quarterly Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory newsletter.
Sutton E, Brewster L, Tarrant C. Health Expect. 2019;22:650-656.
Interviews with frontline hospital staff and executive leaders revealed that they were generally supportive of engaging families and patients to promote infection prevention in the clinical setting when using a collaborative approach. Staff identified certain challenges including concerns related to the extent of responsibility patients and families should bear with regard to infection prevention as well as risks to infection control posed by patients themselves.
Falls are a persistent problem for hospitalized oncology patients, despite protocols to help prevent them. This improvement project tested strategies to engage care teams in fall prevention, including educating patients and families about the risk of falls to help reduce these sentinel events.
Daley J. Colorado Public Radio. February 17, 2015.
Patient and family stories of harm are increasingly promoted as a strategy to provide insights into medical errors. This radio segment interviews a patient advocate whose daughter died due to medical errors, including failure-to-rescue and a health care–associated infection, and who speaks about that experience to educate clinicians on the importance of patient safety and listening to patients' families.
Hueckel RM, Mericle JM, Frush K, et al. J Nurs Care Qual. 2012;27:176-81.
Some hospitals have begun allowing patients and families to directly summon a rapid response team. This implementation study reports on the training process for establishing a family-activated rapid response team at a children's hospital.