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Andreou A. Scientific American. May 26, 2022.

Negative comments and attitudes indicate a lack of professionalism that can affect patient care. This article shares concerns about surgeon biases toward patients who are overweight and calls for clinicians to recognize the problem and address it.

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.

Mind the Implementation Gap. The Persistence of Avoidable Harm in the NHS.

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London UK: Patient Safety Learning: 2022.

Unsafe care affects a wide range of individuals and organizations physically, emotionally, and financially. This report examines large system failures in the UK National Health Service to suggest actions that support learning and improvement. The publication highlights how public investigations, government reports, legal actions, and patient complaints can provide information to support the systems approach required to arrive at safe care.

The Media’s Role in Patient Safety

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April 27, 2022

This piece discusses the role that media plays in affecting patient safety.

HEAR Her Concerns.

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National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Reproductive Health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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.

As a nurse faces prison for a deadly error, her colleagues worry: could I be next?

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Kelman B. Kaiser Health News. March 22, 2022

Criminalization of medical mistakes typifies the blame-focused approach patient safety leaders have worked to reduce in health care. This article covers a high-profile case of medication error involving an automated dispensing system that is ubiquitous in health care.

Bias in mental health diagnosis gets in the way of treatment.

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Garb HN. Psyche. March 22, 2022.

A wide array of biases can affect clinical judgement and contribute to diagnostic error. This article discusses the impact of implicit biases, test inaccuracy, and data weaknesses in diagnosis of mental health conditions in both children and adults. The author provides recommendations for clinicians and researchers to reduce the impact of bias on diagnosis.

Maternity Pre-arrival Instructions by 999 Call Handlers.

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Farnborough, UK: Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch; February 17, 2022.

Pre-hospital emergency care can be vulnerable to timing, information, and task failures that compromise safety. This investigation explores how computerized decision support system access played a roles in an emergency call-center program incident where erroneous information was transmitted to a pregnant patient that contributed to infant harm.

Preventing home medication administration errors.

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Yin HS, Neuspiel DR, Paul IM, et al. Pediatrics. 2021;148:e2021054666.

Children with complex home care needs are vulnerable to medication errors. This guideline suggests strategies to enhance medication safety at home that include focusing on health literacy, prescriber actions, dosing tool appropriateness, communication, and training of caregivers. A March 18, 2022 webinar will highlight factors contributing to medication errors in the home and outline strategies to reduce their impact.

Achieving Excellence in Cancer Diagnosis: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief.

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2022.

Diagnostic errors remain an ongoing challenge in many medical specialties, including oncology. This workshop reviewed the evidence base examining challenges in cancer diagnosis, discussed suggestions for improvement in the field, and looked toward a safer future for cancer patients.

Open Notes shines light on errors in patient medical records — will the new rule lead to a flood of correction requests?

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Clark C. MedPage Today. September 14, 2021.

Patients who have access to their records often find errors that need to be corrected. This story highlights recent US policy changes requiring patient access to their records and explores the impact that requests for changes could have on getting records fixed to ensure accurate information is available to inform future care decisions.

Recognizing Unsafe Care: What It Is and How to Report It.

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Patient Safety Foundation. August 26, 2021.

This webinar introduced medical error and harm as related concepts to identify unsafe care and enhance response, engagement, and reporting efforts of clinicians, patients and families.

Unite for Safe Care.

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Patient Safety Movement. September 17, 2021.

Patient safety is a global challenge for the health care community. This webinar coincided with World Patient Safety Day and presented two tracks for both the profession and the public that highlighted issues impacting maternal care safety and high reliability. Those who have lost their lives to medical error were also honored during the event. The session speakers included Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, MSc, Jeff Brady, MD, and Albert Wu, MD.

Doctors' unconscious bias affects quality of health care services, research shows.

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Dembosky A. All Things Considered. National Public Radio. October 15, 2020.

Physician implicit bias is gaining attention as a patient safety concern. This piece shares a story of ineffective care delivery to a patient with COVID-19 as context for the discussion. Hospital tactics to address the problem such as training and use of patient survey data to motivate individual action are reviewed.

Delay or avoidance of medical care because of COVID-19-related concerns--United States, June 2020.

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Czeisler MÉ, Marynak K, Clarke KEN, et al. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2020;69:1250-1257.

This nationwide survey of U.S. adults found that many respondents (40.9%) have avoided routine, urgent and emergent medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Avoidance of urgent or emergency care was significantly higher among unpaid caregivers for adults; persons with underlying medical conditions; persons with health insurance; non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, or Latino adults; young adults; and persons with disabilities.

Missed and delayed diagnoses of non-COVID conditions--collateral harm from a pandemic.

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Carr S. ImproveDx. 2020;7:1-5.

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted patient care seeking behaviors. This article discusses this phenomenon and its impact on the timing of diagnosis due to fear of contracting COVID-19 or threats resulting from the economic shutdown implemented to reduce spread of the virus.

I can't turn my brain off.

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Hoffman J. New York Times. May 16, 2020.

Health care worker stress is a known contributor to disruptive behavior, error and clinician suicide. This story discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological strain in clinicians and highlights peer support and other techniques to mitigate its negative effects.

There is a vulnerable group we must not leave behind in our response to COVID-19: people who are dependent on illicit drugs.

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Guirguis A. The Pharmaceutical Journal. 2020;304.

Users of illicit substances are vulnerable to a variety of health concerns. This article discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic places illicit drug users at increased risk for COVID-19 due to their predisposition to infection and social contact; how disruptions to illicit drug supply chains increase risk for overdose due to drug substitution and; the impact of missing out on drug treatment services. The piece highlights the role of pharmacists in keeping this marginalized patient population safe.

Many COVID-19 survivors will be left traumatized by their ICU experience.

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Jee C. MIT Technology Review. April 22, 2020.

Patient safety can be challenged even after patients are discharged and return home. This story discusses the potential for psychological trauma in patients who survive a COVID-19 ICU stay. Strategies discussed to address the problem include medication, cognitive therapies and personal wellness instruction.

Are vital home health workers now a safety threat?

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Galewitz P. Kaiser Health News. March 25, 2020.

Home care is a common option for older and disabled patients for managing their chronic conditions. This story highlights provider concerns associated with provision of care at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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