The PSNet Collection

Adverse Health Events in Minnesota: Annual Reports.

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St Paul, MN: Minnesota Department of Health.

The National Quality Forum has defined 29 never events—patient safety problems that should never occur, such as wrong-site surgery and patient falls. Since 2003, Minnesota hospitals have been required to report such incidents. The 2021 report summarizes information about 508 adverse events that were reported, representing a significant increase in the year covered. Earlier reports document a fairly consistent count of adverse events. The rise reflected here is likely due to demands on staffing and care processes associated with COVID-19. Pressure ulcers and fall-related injuries were the most common incidents documented. Reports from previous years are available.

Multiple Failures in Test Results Follow-up for a Patient Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer at the Hampton VA Medical Center in Virginia.

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Washington, DC: VA Office of the Inspector General; June 28, 2022. Report No 21-03349-186.

Cancer test communication failures can contribute to physical, emotional, and financial patient harm. This report examines missed opportunities made by multiple clinicians involved in the care of a patient with prostate cancer who then died from metastasized disease Seven recommendations are included for improving abnormal test result communication and error management at the facility.

Diagnostic Centers of Excellence: Partnerships to Improve Diagnostic Safety and Quality (R18).

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; April 7, 2022. RFA-HS-22-008.

Improving diagnosis and reducing diagnostic errors are patient safety priorities. This announcement supports the development of Diagnostic Centers of Excellence focused on improving frontline diagnostician support and improving diagnostic systems (i.e., improving diagnostic precision through consensus, improving “truth” or diagnostic reference standards). Applications are due by June 9, 2022.

Surveys on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS) Medical Office Survey: 2022 User Database Report.

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Famolaro T, Hare R, Tapia A, et al. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; March 2022. AHRQ Publication No. 22-0017.

The AHRQ Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture is designed to assess safety culture in outpatient clinics. The 2022 comparative data report includes data from 1,100 US medical offices and over 13,000 providers and staff. The highest-scoring composite measures are patient care tracking/follow-up and teamwork. Like the 2020 report, the lowest-scoring measure was work pressure and pace.

HEAR Her Concerns.

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National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Reproductive Health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Maternal harm during and after pregnancy is a sentinel event. This campaign encourages women, families, and health providers to identify and speak up with concerns about maternal care and act on them. The program seeks to inform the design of support systems and tool development that enhance maternal safety.

Diagnostic Safety Issue Briefs.

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2020-2022.

Diagnostic safety has increased its footprint in research, publication, and awareness efforts worldwide. This series of occasional publications introduces diagnostic process concerns and efforts to address them. Topics covered include clinical reasoning, decision making, and patient engagement.

Patient Safety Awareness Week.

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Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

This website provides resources for promoting patient safety during Patient Safety Awareness Week. The annual observance is held in March.

Curated Libraries

Medication/Drug Errors

National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports.

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

In this annual publication, AHRQ reviews the results of the National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report. The 2021 report highlights that a wide range of quality measures have shown improvement in quality, access, and cost.

Complaints to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

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London, UK: Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The National Health Service broadly reports the results of system-level analyses and investigations into trust-specific failures. This publication series provides information about complaints submitted to trusts to track complaints received and responded to, identify common themes, and uncover recurring problems in an effort to enable organizations to improve processes for managing complaints.

Understanding SOPS Surveys--A Quick Primer for New Users.

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. January 12, 2022.

An organization’s understanding of its culture is foundational to patient safety. This webinar introduced the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) program. The session covered the types of surveys available and review resources available to best use the data to facilitate conversations and comparisons to inform improvement efforts.

Lessons Learned? Building a Culture of Patient Safety Within the Veterans Health Administration.

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US House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Health. 117th Cong. 1^st Sess (2021).

The Veterans Health Administration is a large complex system that faces various challenges to safe care provision. At this hearing, government administrators testified on current gaps that detract from safe care in the Veteran’s health system. The experts discussed several high-profile misconduct and systemic failure incidents, suggested that the culture and leadership within the system overall enables latency of issues, and outlined actions being taken to address weaknesses.

Safer Services: A Toolkit for Specialist Mental Health Services and Primary Care.

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National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health. Manchester, UK: University of Manchester; May 31, 2021

System failures require multifactorial assessment to install targeted improvements. This toolkit examines 10 areas of focus for organizations to assess the safety of mental health services in emergent and primary care settings to minimize patient suicide and self-harm. Areas of focus include post-discharge follow-up, admissions, and family engagement.

National Patient Safety Goals.

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The Joint Commission.

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 and preventing hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, inpatient suicide, and specific clinical harms such as falls and pressure ulcers.

A Thematic Analysis of HSIB's First 22 Investigations.

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Farnborough, UK: Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch; September 9, 2021.

In-depth failure investigations provide improvement insights for individuals and organizations alike. This report analyzes a collection of UK National Health Service incident examinations and provides recommendations for improvement on themes related to care transitions and access, decision making, communication, and point-of-care activity.

Making Health Care Safer in Ambulatory Care Settings and Long-term Care Facilities (R18).

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; September 9, 2021. PA-21-267.

This funding opportunity supports large research demonstration and implementation projects applying existing strategies to understand and reduce adverse events in ambulatory and long-term care settings. Projects focused on preventing harm in disadvantaged populations to improve equity are of particular interest. The funding cycle will be active through May 27, 2024.

Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture.

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Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; October 2020.

The AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Medical Office Survey collects information from outpatient providers and staff about the culture of patient safety in their medical offices. The survey is intended for offices with at least three providers, but it also can be used as a tool for smaller offices to stimulate discussion about quality and patient safety issues. The survey is accompanied by a set of resources to support its use. The data submission window for 2021 is now closed.

The Safety of Maternity Services in England.

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Fourth Report of Session 2021–22. House of Commons Health Committee. London, England: The Stationery Office; July 6, 2021. Publication HC 19.

High-profile failures motivate examination and change of existing services. This report builds on maternity care failures in National Health Service trusts to recommend needed changes in learning from failure to effectively support clinicians providing maternity care, provide patient-centered care to mothers and babies, and learn from untoward incidents to enhance care safety.

Accidental exposures to fentanyl patches continue to be deadly to children.

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Rockville, MD: US Food and Drug Administration; 2021.

To protect children and pets from accidental exposure to prescription medications, this consumer alert outlines the dangers of inappropriate storage and disposal of medication skin patches.

Testing and Labeling Medical Devices for Safety in the Magnetic Resonance (MR) Environment.

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Silver Spring, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health. May 20, 2021.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) suites harbor unique hazards that can harm patients, should process missteps occur. This report shares assessment steps to assure that medical devices are labeled appropriately to support their safe use in the MRI environment and encourages organizational reporting of problems encountered when testing device use.

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