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Failure to identify and prevent clinical deterioration can reflect the quality and effectiveness of care. This study used routinely collected emergency event data to identify failure to rescue events at one tertiary children’s hospital. Over a nine-year period, 520 emergency events were identified; 25% were cardiac arrest events and 60% occurred among patients who had been admitted for more than 48 hours. Over the nine-year period, failure to rescue events decreased from 23.6% to 2.5%.

This study sought to validate an emergency department (ED) safety questionnaire developed in the United States, and adapted for use in the UK. The survey was validated by 33 patient safety leads and used in a multi-center survey. Analysis highlighted risks and positive factors (e.g., positive safety culture) present in surveyed EDs.

Building on previous research on the use of text mining related to medication administration error incidents, researchers in this study found that artificial intelligence can be used to accurately classify the free text of medication incident reports causing serious or moderate harm, to identify target risk management areas.

Using data from the Veterans Health Administration National Center for Patient Safety, this retrospective study found that suicide and opioid overdose are the most serious healthcare-related adverse events affecting homeless veterans. Identified root causes include issues related to risk assessment for suicidal or overdose behaviors as well as poor interdisciplinary communication and coordination of care.

Checklists are widely used to improve patient safety, including reductions in catheter-related bloodstream infections and surgical morbidity and mortality. This study focuses on implementation of the 2015 World Health Organization Safe Childbirth Checklist (SCC) which aims to prevent maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Twenty-nine participants from fifteen countries with SCC experience completed a survey and twelve were interviewed. Most reported adapting the SCC for their local setting and a wide variety of implementation strategies were used.

Improving maternal safety is a priority patient safety issue. Using the Global Trigger Tool, researchers found that nearly three-quarters of adverse events in one labor ward in a Swedish hospital were preventable. Common events included lacerations and anesthesia-related events and often resulted in a prolonged hospital stay.

Pregnancy and childbirth are recognized as high-risk activities for both the pregnant person and infant. This article describes the implementation of a postpartum hemorrhage patient safety bundle. Successes, challenges and recommendations for implementation are included.

This article describes the development and validation of a decision support model to support healthcare leadership when prioritizing quality improvement initiatives related to four common healthcare-associated infections.

Situational awareness during critical incidents is a key attribute of effective teams. This article describes the development of a situational awareness model, which included involving families and the interdisciplinary team in huddles, a shared mental model checklist, and an electronic health record (EHR) situational awareness navigator. Use of this new model decreased emergency transfers to the ICU and improved process measures, such as improved risk recognition before medical response team activation.

The goal of peer review is to provide clinicians with the opportunity to learn from errors. A multidisciplinary panel at one academic medical center established a new approach for physician peer review which incorporated a protected electronic portal for communication and engagement and a Just Culture peer review algorithm to identify opportunities for system improvements. The new approach decreased the average time necessary for full case review and increased provider engagement.

Hospital adverse events are common and can contribute to serious patient harm. This systematic review included 94 studies (representing 590 million admissions from 25 countries) examining trends in hospital adverse events from 1961 to 2014. Findings indicate that hospital adverse events have increased over time and that over half are considered preventable.

Cesarean delivery can contribute to increased maternal morbidity. This retrospective study found that the introduction of a hospital-wide perioperative bundle significantly reduced surgical site infection rates. The perioperative bundle consisted of five elements (1) an antibiotic protocol, (2) preoperative warming and intraoperative maintenance of normal temperature, (3) standardized surgical preparation for each patient, (4) use of standardized fascial closure trays, and (5) standardized intraoperative application of wound dressing. 

Technical and procedural skills are an important emphasis of medical training. This article briefly summarizes the “as low as reasonably achievable” (ALARA) approach, which was developed for the nuclear industry and has been used in radiology. The authors outline how ALARA risk standards can be adapted by training program directors to measure procedural competency and assess and reduce bedside procedural risks.

The safety climate in nursing homes influences patient safety. This study of frontline staff and managers from 56 US Veterans Health Administration community living centers found that organizational readiness to change predicted safety climate. The authors suggest that nursing home leadership explore readiness for change in order to help nursing homes improve their safety climate.

This study leveraged “Great Catches” as part of an existing handshake antimicrobial stewardship program (HS-ASP) to identify potential diagnostic errors. Using a validated tool, researchers found that 12% of “Great Catch” cases involved diagnostic error. These cases included a diagnostic recommendation from the HS-ASP team (e.g., recommendations to consider alternative diagnoses, request additional testing, or additional interpretation of laboratory results). As these diagnostic recommendations often flagged diagnostic errors, this suggests that the HS-ASP model can be leveraged to identify and intervene on diagnostic errors in real time.