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 56 Results

Curated Libraries

Patient as a Team Member in Clinical Care

October 23, 2023

This curated library highlights concepts associated with the patient as a partner for safety at the team level directly connected to personal clinical encounters.

TeamSTEPPS: Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety.

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Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Defense.

Effective teamwork plays an essential role in providing safe patient care. The Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) program was developed inititally in collaboration by the United States Department of Defense and AHRQ in order to support effective communication and teamwork in health care. The 3.0 version of the widely implemented program is organized around 5 key strategies: patient focus, integrated platform, modular course design, active adult learning and emergent team challenges and opportunities. It provides new tools to measure its impact, supports increased emphasis on the role of patients in teams, and includes a new pocket guide. A PSNet WebM&M commentary discussed how improved teamwork and shared decision-making might have prevented a missed diagnosis of sepsis that lead to the death of a patient.

Patient Safety Authority Annual Reports.

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Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. Harrisburg, PA: Patient Safety Authority; April 2023.

This report summarizes patient safety improvement work in the state of Pennsylvania. It reviews the 2022 activities of the Patient Safety Authority that reflected a strategic emphasis on reporting compliance and data quality. Additional sections cover educational, publication, and learning management system efforts.

Curated Libraries

Value and Patient Safety

March 8, 2023

Value as an element of patient safety is emerging as an approach to prioritize and evaluate improvement actions. This library highlights resources that explore the business case for cost effective, efficient and impactful efforts to reduce medical errors.

Curated Libraries

Diagnostic Safety

October 10, 2022

Selected PSNet materials for a general safety audience focusing on improvements in the diagnostic process and the strategies that support them to prevent diagnostic errors from harming patients.

Reinforcing the Value and Roles of Nurses in Diagnostic Safety: Pragmatic Recommendations for Nurse Leaders and Educators.

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Tran AK, Calabrese M, Quatrara B, et al. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; September 2022. AHRQ Publication No. 22-0026-4-EF.

Nurses are underutilized as members of the diagnostic team. This publication examines the role of nursing educators and leaders to enhance the participation of nurses in diagnostic processes. It shares strategies for improving diagnosis through nurse engagement in the process. This issue brief is part of a series on diagnostic safety.

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.

Decontamination of Surgical Instruments.

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Farnborough, UK; Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch; May 26, 2022.

Surgical equipment sterilization can be hampered by equipment design, production pressures, process complexity and policy misalignment. This report examines a case of unclean surgical instrument use. It recommends external sterile service assessment and competency review as steps toward improving the reliability of instrument decontamination processes in the National Health Service.

Curated Libraries

Medication/Drug Errors

January 14, 2022

The medication-use process is highly complex with many steps and risk points for error, and those errors are a key target for improving safety. This Library reflects a curated selection of PSNet content focused on medication and drug errors. Included resources explore understanding harms from preventable medication use, medication safety...

Curated Libraries

Maternal Safety

September 13, 2021

Ensuring maternal safety is a patient safety priority. This library reflects a curated selection of PSNet content focused on improving maternal safety. Included resources explore strategies with the potential to improve maternal care delivery and outcomes, such as high reliability, collaborative initiatives, teamwork, and trigger tools.

Decision Making in Emergency Medicine: Biases, Errors and Solutions.

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Raz M, Pouryahya P, eds. Singapore; Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd; 2021. ISBN 9789811601422.

Decision making is vulnerable to human influences such as fatigue, interruption and bias. This book provides case examples of how 60 cognitive biases can degrade clinical reasoning in the emergency department and shares tactics that minimize their potential impact on thinking.

CLER Report of Findings 2021: Subprotocol for Operative and Procedural Areas.

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Kuhn CM, Newton RC, Damewood MD, et al, on behalf of the CLER Evaluation Committee, the CLER Operative and Procedural Subprotocol National Advisory Group, and the CLER Program. Chicago, IL: Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education; February 2021. ISBN: 9781945365386.

The teaching hospital environment can produce clinician behaviors and mindsets that persist throughout a medical career. This report from a clinical learning environment assessment program shares insights gathered during walking rounds specific to perioperative care and general medicine. The report concluded that residents did not actively report problems and rarely participated in event investigations.

Crisis Standards of Care: Ten Years of Successes and Challenges–Proceedings of a Workshop.

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC; The National Academies Press: 2020. ISBN 9780309676250.

Patient safety is challenged during public health emergencies. This report examines a 10-year initiative to develop crisis preparedness standards. The material covers how to proactively apply the program’s experience to assess legal and ethical considerations, learn from federal and state initiatives, address challenges and design steps to continue progress.

CUSP Toolkit.

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; August 2019.

The Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP), originally developed at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Peter Pronovost and colleagues, has been instrumental in driving patient safety improvement in several landmark patient safety initiatives. The CUSP approach emphasizes improving safety culture by through a continuous process of reporting and learning from errors, improving teamwork, and engaging staff at all levels in safety efforts. Most recently, an AHRQ-funded project using the CUSP model achieved a 40% reduction of central line–associated bloodstream infections in intensive care units nationwide. This toolkit includes modules on how to build the CUSP team, identify recurring safety concerns, and improve teamwork and communication.

10 Medication Safety Tips for Hospitalized Patients.

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Horsham, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2019.

Hospitalized patients are at risk for medication errors. This set of tips seeks to help hospitalized patients contribute to the safe use of medications in their care. Recommendations include that patients know the reason they are taking each medication, speak up if any medications look different than previously, and talk with pharmacists when picking up discharge medications.

Patient Suicide on a Locked Mental Health Unit at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center, Florida.

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Washington, DC: Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General. August 22, 2019. Report No. 19-07429-195.

Hospitalized patient suicide is a sentinel event. This report describes an investigation into a patient suicide incident in the Veterans Affairs health system that found numerous conditions that contributed to the event, such as nonoperational security cameras, ineffective rounding policy, and lack of leadership knowledge of safety practices in mental health units. Recommendations for improvement include staff education, standardization of rounding, and robust oversight of frontline practice.

Learning From Invited Reviews.

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London, UK: Royal College of Surgeons of England; 2019.

Physical demands and technical complexities can affect surgical safety. This resource is designed to capture frontline perceptions of surgeons in the United Kingdom regarding concerning behaviors exhibited by their peers during practice to facilitate awareness of problems, motivate improvement, and enable learning.

Greater Focus on Credentialing Needed to Prevent Disqualified Providers From Delivering Patient Care.

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Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office; February 2019. Publication GAO-19-6.

Gaps in responding to concerns about clinician competence can result in care failures. This report examined Veterans Health Administration (VHA) actions associated with National Practitioner Data Bank records and found variation in how organizations responded to that information including some instances where VHA facilities inappropriately hired providers. The Government Accountability Office makes seven recommendations to address this problem.

Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Competencies Across the Learning Continuum.

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AAMC New and Emerging Areas in Medicine Series. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges; 2019. ISBN: 9781577541882.

Curricula support the development and assessment of domain-centric performance. This document recommends subjects to be included at three levels of physician skill development in patient safety. Topics covered include foundations to the specialty, quality improvement, patient and family partnerships, team function, collaboration and organization and health equity.

Medication Safety Dashboard.

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National Health Service.

Data surveillance and transparency are core to measuring and informing improvement efforts. This website provides detailed data that links ambulatory care prescribing activity to National Health Service hospitalizations in an effort to clarify potential adverse medication events. The dashboard launched tracking gastrointestinal bleeding as an indicator of a medication-related adverse result and will expand to other indicators and conditions over time.

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