The PSNet Collection: All Content

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.

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 83 Results

A deadly epidural, delivered by a doctor with a history of mistakes.

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Goldstein J. New York Times. January 23, 2023.

Active errors are evident when they occur, yet systemic weaknesses, if not addressed, allow them to repeat. This story examines poor epidural methods of one clinician that coincided with lack of organizational practitioner monitoring, unequitable maternal care for black women and clinician COVID fatigue to contribute to patient death.

Bleeding and in pain, a pregnant woman in Louisiana couldn’t get answers.

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Westwood R. Kaiser Health News. January 12, 2023.

Lack of access to obstetric care impedes safe treatment for mothers. This story describes challenges one mother experienced in finding care during a miscarriage due to abortion policies and the steps she and her family took to manage her condition.

Her child was stillborn at 39 weeks. She blames a system that doesn’t always listen to mothers.

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Eldeib D. ProPublica. November 13, 2022.

Pregnancy is recognized as a high-risk condition for both mother and infant. This news story examines the potential for stillbirth and its preventability. Lack of respect for the concerns of mothers, inadequate attention to research, and poor patient education are discussed as contributors to stillbirth.

How to Stay Safe When Entering the Healthcare System: A Physician Walks across the Country to Raise Awareness of the Need to Improve Healthcare Safety.

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Meyer DB. Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers; 2022. ISBN:‎ 9781627344067

Individual commitment to patient safety can motivate change. This book highlights an advocacy action by a patient safety leader to generate awareness, engagement, and action using personal, professional, and patient stories of error.

Deep Dive: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Healthcare.

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

Racist behavior directed at either patients or clinicians can degrade the safety of care. This report reviewed over 500 race- or ethnicity-related patient safety incidents to determine the types of actions involved and the role of the individual committing the action. In addition, the impact of the behaviors on the mental health of providers is examined. The report suggests strategies for understanding, detecting, and reducing health disparities.

Evaluation of Quality, Safety and Value in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal 2021.

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Washington, DC: Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General; 2022. Report No. 22-00818-03.

Organizational evaluations often reveal opportunities to address persistent quality and safety issues. This extensive inspection report shares findings from examinations at 45 Veterans Health Administration care facilities that focused on assessing oversight, system redesign and surgical programs. Recommendations drawn from the analysis call for improvements in protected peer review, surgical work structure and surgical adverse incident examination.

Position Statement on Criminalization of Medical Error and Call for Action to Prevent Patient Harm from Error.

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Cooper J, Thomas BJ, Rebello E, et al for the APSF Criminalization of Error Task Force. APSF Newsletter. October 2022; 37(3):80-81

Criminalizing human error can deter the transparency necessary to learn from incidents and improve health care. This position statement articulates the importance of avoiding the criminal prosecution to mistakes to instead focus on system failures to prevent conditions that permit errors to harm patients.

Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Summary Report: Evaluation of Care Coordination in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal Year 2021.

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Washington, DC: VA Office of the Inspector General; September 15, 2022. Report no. 22-00815-232.

Care coordination failures reduce the effectiveness of communication, information transfer, and patient monitoring to the determent of safety. This report examines the current state of interfacility transfers in 45 veteran facilities to find that, while process requirements were basically met, improvements could be made to medication list transfer, nursing communication, and general service evaluation.

When medical error becomes personal, activism becomes painful.

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Millenson M. Forbes. September 16, 2022.

Unnecessary medication infusions indicate weaknesses in medication service processes. While no harm was noted in the case discussed, the actions by the patient’s family to initiate an examination of the incident were rebuffed, patient disrespect was demonstrated, a near miss incident report was absent, and data omissions took place. The piece discusses how these detractors from safety were all present at the hospital involved.

New Covid boosters look a lot like the old ones. Doctors worry that could lead to errors.

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Lovelace Jr, B. NBC News. September 7, 2022.

Look-alike sound-alike packaging is a known risk factor in medication errors. This news story discusses how a questionable design decision to use similar cap colors for the latest COVID boosters creates potential for administration errors.

Charlie Bourg was on the lookout for veterans harmed by a new VA computer system. He didn’t expect to be one of them.

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Donovan-Smith O. Spokesman-Review. September 11, 2022.

Electronic health record (EHR) system issues degrade the data sharing and communication needed to inform safe patient care. This newspaper feature discusses problems with the new Veterans Affairs EHR system from the patient and family perspective in the context of diagnostic and treatment delay.

'We had such trust, we feel such fools’: how shocking hospital mistakes led to our daughter’s death.

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Mills M. The Guardian. September 3, 2022

Families experiencing medical error can harbor frustration with the system but also with themselves for allowing care mistakes to take their loved one. This first-person account shares the story of a mother’s loss of a daughter to sepsis. The memoir illustrates how lack of respect for a family’s concern contributed to the incident.

Abortion bans have consequences for wanted pregnancies, too.

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Feibel C. Consider This. National Public Radio. August 3, 2022.

Maternal complications risk the health of both mothers and babies, and a variety of circumstances create challenges to this complex care process. This article describes delays in care for a pregnant patient due to legal and policy concerns that threatened the life of the mother.

The Uneven Burden of Maternal Mortality in the U.S.

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NIHCM Foundation. Washington DC: National Institute for Health Care Management. August 2, 2022.

Preventable maternal morbidity is an ongoing challenge in the United States. This infographic shares general data and statistics that demonstrate the presence of racial disparities in maternal care that are linked to structural racism. The resource highlights several avenues for improvement such as diversification of the perinatal staffing and increased access to telehealth.

Examining the Status of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Program.

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US Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. 117th Cong (2021-2022). (July 20, 2022).

Large-scale electronic health record (EHR) implementation projects encompass a myriad of problems to navigate to arrive at success. This Congressional panel explores challenges experienced during EHR implementation in the VA Health system. Panelists from the Veterans Administration, the investigator and the technology vendor involved in the program shared insights and next steps to direct improvement.

Under the Skin. The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of our Nation.

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Villarosa L. New York, NT: Doubleday: 2022. ISBN 9780385544887.

Health inequities are receiving increased attention as a patient safety issue. This book examines the persistent problem of systemic racism on the health of Black patients. It summarizes the evidence on how racism affects health care and discusses strategies for improvement such as reducing gaps in implicit bias content in curriculum.

Harm Caused by Delays in Transferring Patients to the Right Place of Care.

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Farnborough, UK: Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch; June 2022.

Handoffs between prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) providers and hospital emergency departments (EDs) can be suboptimal, which increases patient harm potential. This interim report examines National Health Service discharge delays. It suggests a systemic approach is needed to address flow and capacity factors that contribute to ineffective and unsafe interfacility discharge and transfer.

Stop using these adult bed rails, warns the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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Treisman R. National Public Radio. June 6, 2022

Bedrails are used in hospitals and at home to minimize falls despite the potential to contribute to patient harm. This news article summarizes a government recall of ten models of home bed rail devices due to entrapment incidents.

Nurse Vaught sentenced for deadly medical error.

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DePeau-Wilson M. MedPage Today. May 13, 2022.

Disciplinary actions against clinicians who err continue despite awareness efforts to inhibit them. This article summarizes reaction to the sentencing of a nurse in a high-profile medication error case. It discusses reverberations throughout healthcare that will affect patient safety efforts.

The Color of Care.

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Chicago, IL: Harpo Productions, Smithsonian Channel: May 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the impact of racial disparities and inequities on patient safety for patients of color. This film shares stories of families whose care was unsafe. The cases discussed highlight how missed and dismissed COVID symptoms and inattention to patient and family concerns due to bias reduces patient safety.

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