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Using a case of mislabeled lab specimens as an example, this article highlights the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the delivery of healthcare services and the role of human factors in identifying and preventing medical errors.

This commentary discusses changes in critical care practice as a response to COVID-19, and the potential for iatrogenic harm to children when diverting from evidence-based medicine during the pandemic crisis.

Presenteeism among healthcare workers can lead to burnout and healthcare-associated infections, but prior research has found that significant numbers of healthcare workers continue to work despite having influenza-like illness. This study surveyed 249 healthcare workers and 284 non-healthcare workers from 49 countries about their behaviors when experiencing influenza-like illness between October 2018 and January 2019. Overall, 59% of workers would continue to work when experiencing influenza-like illness, and the majority of healthcare workers (89.2-99.2%) and non-healthcare workers (80-96.5%) would continue to work with mild symptoms, such as a mild cough, fatigue or sinus cold.  Fewer non-healthcare workers (16.2%) than healthcare workers (26.9%) would continue working with fever alone.

In the United States, unannounced accreditation inspections are deployed extensively to evaluate hospital safety. This interrupted time-series analysis found that enhanced accreditation procedures in the United Kingdom did not improve rates of either pressure ulcers or falls. In a PSNet interview, the president of The Joint Commission discussed how accrediting bodies can help achieve high reliability.

This commentary reveals how positive deviance can be applied in the hospital setting to reduce hospital-acquired infections.