This annual analysis explores rates of health care-associated infections (HAIs) reported in the United States. Data from 2022 revealed decreases in central line–associated bloodstream infections and other hospital-acquired infections while reporting little progress in other healthcare settings. The current report includes data from the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

This online class prepares individuals to apply for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement patient safety certification program. The on-demand or live sessions cover key patient safety concepts to enhance participants' knowledge about safety culture, systems thinking, leadership, risk identification and analysis, information technology, and human factors. 

Burnout among health care workers negatively affects system improvement. This webinar series will highlight strategies to establish a healthy work environment that strengthens teamwork, staff engagement, and resilience. Instructors include Dr. Donald Berwick and Derek Feeley.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices sponsors the annual Cheers Awards to recognize both individuals and institutions for their commitment to medication safety. The 2023 awards recognized Susan Donnell Scott PhD for her work focusing on support mechanisms for clinicians involved in medical error.

The sharing of data is a core element of a learning health system. AHRQ has released the Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD) Chartbook 2023, which offers an overview of nonidentifiable, aggregated patient safety event and near-miss information, voluntarily reported by AHRQ-listed Patient Safety Organizations across the country between June 2014 and December 2022. The chartbook outlines the extent of harm reported, distribution of patient safety events, near misses, and unsafe conditions. 

This quarterly commentary explores a wide range of subjects associated with patient safety, such as the impact of disruptive behavior on teams, the value of apologies, and safety challenges inherent in clinician strike actions. Older materials are available online for free.

Human factors engineering (HFE) is a primary strategy for advancing safety in health care. This virtual workshop will introduce HFE methods and discuss how they can be used to reduce risk through design improvements in a variety of process and interpersonal situations.

Root cause analysis (RCA) is a widely recognized retrospective strategy for learning from failure that is challenging to implement. This series of webinars will feature an innovative approach to RCA that expands on the concept to facilitate its use in incident investigations. Instructors for the series will include Dr. Terry Fairbanks and Dr. Tejal K. Gandhi.

The comprehensive unit-based safety program (CUSP) approach emphasizes improving safety culture through a continuous process of reporting and learning from errors, improving teamwork, and engaging staff at all levels in safety efforts. Available on demand and live, this session covers how to utilize CUSP, including understanding and addressing challenges to implementation. The next virtual session will be held January 16, 2024.

Reducing preventable harm associated with health care is a worldwide goal. This Canadian initiative developed a measure to track unintended harm in acute care hospitals, a toolkit to accompany reduction efforts, and reports that assess the results of improvement efforts and provide data analysis.

The National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) are one of the major methods by which The Joint Commission establishes standards for ensuring patient safety in all health care settings. In order to ensure health care facilities focus on preventing major sources of patient harm, The Joint Commission regularly revises the NPSGs based on their impact, cost, and effectiveness. Major focus areas include promoting surgical safety, achieving health equity, and preventing hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, inpatient suicide, and specific clinical harms such as falls and pressure ulcers. The 2024 goals are now available.

This publication annually reports on the successful outcomes of the Michigan Keystone Center collaborative activities. The achievements noted in the 2022-2023 data review include reduction of MHA Keystone Center PSO members have significantly reduced both fall and blood or blood product events reported to the state patient safety organization reporting system. Areas of focus for improvement work reported on include health equity, workforce wellbeing, and maternal health.

The National Quality Forum has defined 29 never events—patient safety problems that should never occur, such as wrong-site surgery. Since 2003, Minnesota hospitals have been required to report such incidents. The 2022 report summarizes information about 572 adverse events that were reported, representing a significant increase in the year covered. Earlier reports prior to the last two years reflect a fairly consistent count of adverse events. The rise documented here is likely due to demands on staffing and care processes associated with COVID-19 and general increases in patient complexity and subsequent length of stay. Pressure ulcers and fall-related injuries were the most common incidents recorded. Reports from previous years are available.

This annual report summarizes never events in Maryland hospitals over the previous year. During fiscal year 2022, reported events increased due to the COVID pandemic, workforce shortages and other system demands. Events contributing to patient deaths and severe harm from preventable medical errors during the time period doubled. The authors recommend several corrective actions to enhance improvement work, including board and executive leadership engagement in safety work and application of high-reliability concepts to enhance safety culture.

Work toward zero harm in health care is gaining national attention in the United States. This webinar aligns with efforts by the National Action Alliance to Advance Patient Safety. The most recent session explored the successful application of high reliability concepts at the Veterans Health Administration. There have been five videos in this series of offerings from the Alliance supporting its work to improve safety.

The operating room is a high-risk environment influenced by culture, teamwork, and task complexity. This review provides an overview of patient safety challenges in the operating room and highlights key approaches for improvement such as system engineering, collaboration, and checklists.

The Speak Up campaign provides sets of materials to enable patients and families to engage in making their health care experiences as safe as possible. Topics covered include safe surgery, pain management, medication safety, and most recently, how preventive care helps to keep patients healthy and out of the hospital. Each topical package includes infographics, videos, and distribution guidance. Some written materials are available in Spanish.

Nurses have a fundamental role in safe care delivery by fostering a healthy work environment. This award recognizes nurses that exhibit compassion, patient and family centeredness, and a commitment to workplace safety. The award will be presented at the annual IHI Patient Safety Congress. The award nomination process for 2023 closes on December 3.

This site provides promotional materials and registration information for an awareness campaign on patient safety that takes place in the autumn. The annual observance will take place October 23-27, 2023.