Never events are catastrophic adverse events resulting in patient death or significant disability that are largely preventable. This narrative synthesis describes which events organizations most frequently identify as never events, and which are most commonly described as entirely preventable. 125 unique never events were identified, nearly 20% of which were classified as entirely preventable. The most frequent never events were wrong site or wrong patient surgery, wrong surgical procedure, and unintentionally retained objects.

Reducing maternal morbidity and mortality is a global patient safety goal. This systematic review identified three categories of direct and indirect risk factors of maternal safety: delay of care, coordination and management of care, and scarcity of supply, personnel, and knowledge. The risk factors varied between developed and developing countries.

Medication safety in inpatient and outpatient settings is a major focus of patient safety efforts. This review included 79 studies on epidemiology, etiology, or interventions related to psychiatric medication safety in primary care (e.g., general practice, community pharmacy, long-term care). Most studies focused on older adults and potentially inappropriate prescribing. The authors recommend future research on wider age groups and underrepresented mental health diagnosis, such as attention deficient hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Context (e.g., patient characteristics, setting) can influence clinical reasoning and increase the risk for diagnostic errors. This article explores the ways in which individual-, team-, and system-level contextual factors impact reasoning, clinician performance and risk of error. The authors propose a multilevel framework to better understand how contextual factors impact clinical reasoning.

Algorithms are commonly used to guide clinical decision-making, but concerns have been raised regarding bias due to the use of race-based data. This qualitative analysis examined perspectives of 42 stakeholders (e.g., individuals, representatives from clinical professional societies or payers, etc.) regarding the use of race- and ethnicity-based algorithms in healthcare. Seven themes were identified, highlighting concerns regarding bias, algorithm transparency, lack of standardization regarding how race and social determinants are collected and defined, and the use of a social construct as a proxy in clinical decision-making.

Pharmacists play a critical role in medication safety. This article evaluated the impact of a pharmacist-led information technology intervention (PINCER) among a retrospective cohort of 56.8 million National Health Service (NHS) patients across 6,367 general practices between September 2019 and September 2021. Findings indicate that potentially dangerous prescribing (i.e., prescribing medications to patients without associated blood test monitoring, co-prescribing medications with adverse indications, prescribing medications to patients with certain comorbidities) was largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hospital-at-home (HAH) model allows patients to receive hospital-level care in their homes. This systematic review identified 25 articles (18 interventions) comparing outcomes of pediatric HAH care to standard in-hospital care. Hospital at home was not associated with increased hospital readmissions or adverse events. However, the quality of the studies was low to very low, and additional high-quality research is required.

A culture of safety is essential to the delivery of high-quality, safe healthcare. This scoping review including 34 studies found that patient safety culture scores were generally associated with reduced adverse event rates, but the authors note a paucity of research from primary care settings and low- and middle-income countries as well as a need for longitudinal studies using standardized measures to better examine this relationship.

Minoritized and vulnerable people often experience delays in care due to systemic biases. This survey study examined the association between perceived discrimination at community pharmacies and foregoing or delaying picking up medications. Participants reported discrimination based on race, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, income, and prescription insurance; those participants were more likely to delay picking up their medications. There was no association with discrimination and foregoing medications.

Maternal morbidity and mortality are disproportionately experienced by persons of color in the United States. The authors of this article present a socioecological model for understanding the individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and societal factors contributing to Black maternal morbidity and mortality. The authors outline several recommendations for improving care, including workforce diversification, incorporating social determinants of health and health disparities into health professional education, and exploring the impact of structural racism on maternal health outcomes.  

Improving diagnosis and diagnostic error-related harm is a major focus within patient safety. Building on previous research, patients and patient advocates participated in a systematic prioritization exercise and prioritized ten diagnostic error reduction research priorities. Prioritized questions focused on improving care integration/coordination, communication between clinicians and patients/caregivers, improving patient reporting systems, and improved understanding of implicit bias, and underlying factors increasing risk for diagnostic errors among vulnerable patient groups. The authors note that these priorities differed more than those identified previously by diagnostic safety experts and stakeholders.

Electronic health records (EHRs) are key for the collection of patient care data to inform overarching risk management and improvement strategies. This article discusses the adoption of EHRs as tools supporting patient safety and highlights the need for an expanded technology infrastructure to continue making progress.

Discrimination can contribute to health inequities and exacerbate disparities in cancer care. In this study, researchers used a survey tool and qualitative interviews to explore the experiences of perceived discrimination for Black women and how it impacts cervical cancer prevention. Study findings suggest that perceived high degrees of discrimination create mistrust between patients and providers and can impact health outcomes.

Patient engagement is a cornerstone of patient safety initiatives. This systematic review explored how patients and caregivers are engaged as partners in healthcare, particularly in cancer care and mental health care.

Rates of prescription opioid misuse and abuse led to recommendations for dose tapering for patients with chronic pain. However, concerns have been raised about the potential harms associated with rapidly decreasing doses or discontinuing opioids. Building on previous research, these researchers used a large claims database to explore the unintended negative consequences of tapering patients on stable, long-term opioid therapy. Findings indicate that opioid tapering was associated with fewer primary care visits, greater numbers of emergency department visits, and reduced adherence to antihypertensive and antidiabetic medications.