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Many aspects of crew resource management in aviation, such as the sterile cockpit, are used in healthcare to increase situational awareness (SA) and decrease human error. The situational awareness of paramedics in one US city was measured before and after receiving a targeted educational program on situational awareness. There was a statistically significant increase in SA following the intervention, although additional research is needed with larger cohorts.

Reducing hospital 30-day readmissions is seen as a way to improve safety and reduce costs. Baltimore City mobile integrated health and community paramedicine (MIH-CP) was designed to improve transitional care from hospital to home. After one year in operation, MIH-CP performed a chart review to determine causes of readmission among patients in the program. Root cause analysis indicated that at least one social determinant of health (e.g., health literacy) played a role in preventable readmissions; the program was modified to improve transitional care.

Emergency medical services (EMS) clinicians must decide whether to transport patients to hospitals for emergency care, what level of emergency care they require, or to treat the patient at home and not transport to hospital. This analysis focused on patient safety incidents in Swedish prehospital care that occurred after 2015, following implementation of a protocol allowing EMS clinicians to triage patients to see-and-treat (non-conveyance) or see-and-convey elsewhere. Qualitative analysis of incident reports revealed three themes: assessment of patients, guidelines, and environment and organization. EMS clinicians deviated from the protocol in 34% of cases, putting patients at risk of inappropriate triage to see-and-treat.

Older adults are vulnerable to patient safety events during care transitions. The Older Persons’ Transitions in Care (OPTIC) study prospectively tracked long-term care residents’ transitions and applied the IOM’s quality of care domains to develop 49 measures for quality of care for the transition process (e.g., safety, timeliness, efficiency, effectiveness, and patient-centered care) between long-term care and emergency department settings.

Hospitals employ a variety of strategies to prevent inpatient falls. Based on data from incident reports, this study used process mapping to identify opportunities to improve timely diagnosis of serious injury resulting from inpatient falls. Researchers found that multiple interventions (e.g., education, changes in the transport process) with small individual effects resulted in a substantial cumulative positive impact on delays in the diagnosis of serious harm resulting from a fall.

Feedback is an essential component of performance improvement and patient safety. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with emergency medical services (EMS) professionals in the United Kingdom about their perspectives on how feedback impacts patient care and safety. Findings highlight strong desire for feedback and concerns that inadequate feedback could inhibit learning from mistakes, limit professional development, and negatively impact patient safety.

Transporting critically ill patients within a hospital (e.g., to radiology for diagnostic procedures) is necessary but also poses safety threats. The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all types of adverse events, critical or life-threatening adverse events, and death occurring during intra-hospital transport. Results indicate that adverse events can occur in intra-hospital transport, and that frequency of critical adverse events and death are low.

Patients who are treated by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel but not transported to the hospital are referred to as non-conveyed patients. In this retrospective cohort study, researchers found that older adult patients in Sweden are at an increased risk of adverse events (such as infection, hospitalization, or death) within 7-days following non-conveyance.

Reporting patient safety incidents is essential to improving patient safety. This study compared the number of self-reported (to the study team) safety incidents during interhospital transport and the number of incidents submitted to the hospital’s reporting system. Nearly half of all patient transports had at least one self-reported incident; however, only 1% of incidents were reported to the hospital’s electronic reporting system.

Air medical transport carries unique patient safety risks. In this study, researchers used simulation training and healthcare failure mode and effect analysis (HFMEA) to identify latent safety threats related to patient transport via helicopter. This approach identified 31 latent safety threats (18 were deemed critical) related to care coordination, facilities, equipment, and devices.

Patient safety incidents occurring in prehospital care settings are gaining increasing attention. This systematic review including both peer-reviewed studies and grey literature found that the incidence rate of prehospital patient safety incidents is similar to hospital rates. The authors identified an average of 5.9 patient safety incidents per 100 records/transports/patients occurring in prehospital care; approximately 15% of these incidents resulted in patient harm. The authors discuss methodological challenges to preshopital care research and make recommendations for future studies.

Interhospital transfer of critical care patients presents patient safety risks. This retrospective study compared adverse event rates between pediatric patient transport both with, and without, parent or family presence. Adverse event rates were not significantly impacted by parental presence.

Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel are in the unique position of providing medical care outside of a healthcare facility. This prospective cohort study conducted in Finland explored the outcomes of patients who were treated by EMS personnel without going to the ED. Findings indicate that 80% of patients treated by EMS did not have any re-contact with the healthcare system (e.g., re-contacted EMS, went to the ED, were hospitalized), suggesting that EMS management of these patients is relatively safe.

Pediatric medication administration in prehospital care is challenging due to the need to obtain an accurate weight and calculate dosing. The Los Angeles County emergency medical services implemented a Medical Control Guideline (MCG) to eliminate the need to calculate the dose of a commonly administered medication. Following implementation of the MCG, dosing errors decreased from 18.5% to 14.1% in pediatric prehospital care.

Medication errors are common in pediatric patients who require care from emergency medical services. This randomized trial measured the impact of a mobile app in reducing medication errors during simulated pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest scenarios. Advanced paramedics were exposed to a standardized video simulation of an 18-month of child with cardiac arrest and tested on sequential preparations of intravenous emergency drugs of varying degrees of difficulty with or without mobile app support. Compared with conventional drug preparation methods, use of the mobile app significantly decreased the rate of medication errors and time to drug delivery.

Prior research found significant confusion among physicians in understanding Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) documents, which can lead to errors. This study found that emergency medical services (EMS) personnel did not exhibit adequate understanding of all POLST or living will documents either. The researchers propose that patient video messaging can increase clarity about treatment, and preserve patient safety and autonomy.

Inaccurate assessment of pediatric patient weight can lead to medication dosing errors. In simulated pediatric scenarios, pre-hospital emergency medical services (EMS) crews obtained patient weight using one or more of three methods: asking parent, using patient age, and Broselow-Luten Tape (BLT). BLT was the most frequent method used and patient age resulted in the most frequent dosing errors. Systems-based solutions are presented.