All Content

Ambulatory care settings are receiving increased attention as a focus for patient safety improvements. Using data from a multistate patient safety organization (PSO) database, the researchers sought to characterize patterns and characteristics of patient safety incidents reported in ambulatory care settings. Analyses found that 5.9% of events resulted in severe harm and 1.9% resulted in patient death. Over half of the events were from outpatient subspecialty care; fewer events occurred in home/community (5.2%), primary care (2.1%), or dialysis (2.0%) settings. Medication-related events were most common, followed by clinical deterioration and falls. Predictors of higher harm included diagnostic errors, patient/caregiver challenges, and events occurring in home/community or psychiatric settings. These results can help ambulatory care settings target safety events and develop systems-level prevention strategies.  

This retrospective analysis used root cause analysis reports of suicide events in VA hospitals to characterize suicide attempts and deaths and provide prevention recommendations. Recommendations include avoidance of environmental hazards, medication monitoring, control of firearms, and close observation.

This qualitative study interviewed patients and caregivers about their experiences and perceptions of safety within mental health services. These interviews identified a broad range of safety issues; the authors suggest that patient safety in mental health services could be expanded to include harm caused trying to access services and self-harm provoked by contact with, or rejection from, services.

This systematic review examined common systems factors affecting suicide deaths in mental health care. Seven themes contributing to suicide deaths were identified: (1) inappropriate or incomplete risk assessment; (2) lack of family involvement; (3) inadequate transitions and communication between different care teams; (4) lack of adherence to policies and procedures; (5) treatment not in line with current guidelines; (6) access to means and observation and; (7) lack of specialist services within the community.

This review discusses the importance of teamwork in supporting safety, psychological states driving effective safety performance, organizational- and team-level characteristics impacting safety performance, and the role of teams in safety management.

Researchers interviewed mental health nurses to determine perceived obstacles to reporting medication administration errors or near misses. Many factors were identified, including insufficient knowledge, fear of consequences, or burden of work associated with reporting. These have also been cited as reasons for under-reporting of errors in prior nursing studies.