This study reports on results of completing TeamSTEPPS training by leadership and staff in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at one hospital in Saudi Arabia. The team implemented a daily safety huddle aimed at improving communication and early identification and timely resolution of patient safety issues. Over a 7-month period, 340 safety issues were addressed; the majority involved infection control and medication errors (32%), communication issues (24%) and documentation issues (17%). The authors observed that the daily huddle addressed misconceptions and misunderstandings between nursing and medical teams leading to improved care delivery.

While prior research has shown that computerized provider order entry and clinical decision support systems have the potential to improve patient safety, less is known about the impact of such systems in intensive care units. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, investigators found an 85% decrease in prescribing errors and a 12% reduction in ICU mortality rates in critical care units that converted from paper orders to commercially available computerized provider order entry systems.

This study reviewed prescriptions following implementation of a computerized provider order entry system. More than half of examined prescriptions had medication errors, most often related to incorrect documentation of verbal orders. These results add to concerns about unintended consequences of computerized provider order entry.

Full-time trauma surgeons had a lower incidence of diagnostic errors (defined as the incidence of missed injuries in severely injured patients) compared with surgeons who primarily practiced in other specialties, according to this retrospective analysis of patients admitted to a Taiwanese surgical intensive care unit.

This research letter examines the value of the physical examination in forming a correct diagnosis on admission. The authors found that four out of five internal medicine patients in the emergency department could be correctly diagnosed from information gleaned by the history, physical examination, and basic laboratory tests.

This study discovered that medication errors were more common in the emergency department setting than in emergency vehicles, and patients requiring multiple medications were at higher risk for medication errors.

The accuracy of medication profiles at a small hospital was superior to that documented in other studies, a finding which the authors attribute to use of an integrated medication reconciliation system within the electronic medical record.

This study discovered that computerized provider order entry saved nurses time but did not improve their ability to detect infusion pump programming errors compared with handwritten orders.

This study evaluated the mechanisms by which hospital wards learned from medication administration errors and the effect these learning strategies had on subsequent incidence of errors.

Kuwaiti nurses felt that increased workload and stress were associated with an increased incidence of patient safety problems.

Unplanned readmissions within 30 days of discharge were associated with problems in the quality of care, including inadequate diagnostic workup and diagnostic error.

This analysis of adverse drug events at a hospital in Hong Kong found that dosing errors were most common, and more errors were associated with handwritten prescriptions than computerized provider order entry.

The authors retrospectively reviewed charts of early mortality in their emergency department from a 3-year period and categorized events that were preventable. They found that inappropriate medical management, delay in diagnosis, and misdiagnosis contributed to the deaths.