Health care inequities persist despite increasing awareness they negatively affect quality, safety, and patient centeredness. This article shares the Joint Commission strategy for embedding equity improvement into the National Patient Safety Goal initiative to increase focus on equity as a safety priority across all care environments.

Lewis Blackman was a young man who lost his life to medical error when the severity of his condition after elective surgery was unrecognized by clinicians caring for him. This award will acknowledge residents and fellows engaged in developing educational programs on patient safety. Nominations for the 2024 award cycle are due March 15, 2023.

The annual Eisenberg Award recognizes leaders and organizations who have made substantial contributions toward patient safety and quality improvement. The 2022 honorees are Jason S. Adelman, MD, MS, North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) and Parkland Health, Dallas County, Texas. The awards will be presented at the National Quality Forum's annual conference on February 20, 2023, in Washington, DC.

Active errors are evident when they occur, yet systemic weaknesses, if not addressed, allow them to repeat. This story examines poor epidural methods of one clinician that coincided with lack of organizational practitioner monitoring, unequitable maternal care for black women and clinician COVID fatigue to contribute to patient death.

Misdiagnosis can result in inappropriate medication use. This report examined the overuse of antipsychotics in nursing homes and resident harms. These recommendations from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General include heightened evaluation and oversight of medication use and better documentation of diagnosis with medication orders as avenues for improvement.

Lack of access to obstetric care impedes safe treatment for mothers. This story describes challenges one mother experienced in finding care during a miscarriage due to abortion policies and the steps she and her family took to manage her condition.

Emergency department safety is challenged by factors such as production pressure, burnout, and overcrowding. This news article provides context for the 2022 AHRQ report Diagnostic Errors in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) which synthesized the number of patients harmed while seeking emergency care.

Inadequate equipment and personnel training degrade the reliability of individuals to provide safe care in an emergency. This article discusses inconsistent preparedness throughout commercial aviation to support care during an in-flight medical situation; it suggests federal oversight of medical kits may help to ensure their completeness and improve the potential for safety should care be required.

This funding opportunity will support collaborative learning strategies that enable individuals and organizations to employ rapid prototyping to engineer new approaches focused on improving diagnosis and treatment. This learning laboratory funding builds on prior initiatives to further improvements in patient safety. The project submission process will close January 25, 2023.

This website provides resources for promoting patient safety during Patient Safety Awareness Week. The 2023 observance will be held March 12-18. 

Although diagnostic accuracy in the emergency department (ED) is high, diagnostic errors still occur. This evidence review estimated that 1 in 18 ED patients receive an incorrect diagnosis, which translates to 7.4 million patients misdiagnosed every year (or 5.7% of all ED visits annually). Five conditions were found to be most vulnerable to misdiagnosis: stroke, heart attack, aortic aneurysm/ dissection, spinal cord injury and blood clots. The evidence review identified variation in diagnostic error rates across demographic groups; female sex and non-White race were often associated with increased risk for diagnostic errors. Serious misdiagnosis-related harms were often associated with clinician bedside judgement and other cognitive failures. 

Partnerships are needed to motivate, design, and implement lasting innovation in complex situations. This announcement calls for stakeholder insights on the work of the National Healthcare System Action Alliance to Advance Patient Safety and how it can best realize its mission and goals. The deadline for submitting comments is January 26, 2023.

Gender and racial bias contributes to inadequate and delayed care. This story focuses on women who have experienced harm due to their pain concerns being marginalized or dismissed.