The National Quality Forum has defined 29 never events—patient safety problems that should never occur, such as wrong-site surgery. Since 2003, Minnesota hospitals have been required to report such incidents. The 2022 report summarizes information about 572 adverse events that were reported, representing a significant increase in the year covered. Earlier reports prior to the last two years reflect a fairly consistent count of adverse events. The rise documented here is likely due to demands on staffing and care processes associated with COVID-19 and general increases in patient complexity and subsequent length of stay. Pressure ulcers and fall-related injuries were the most common incidents recorded. Reports from previous years are available.

This annual report shares the results of Western Australia's sentinel event reporting program. Medication errors were the highest recorded sentinel event in the latest period. The data is placed in the context of the overall data collected over the last 5 years of the program.

Community pharmacies are common providers of medication delivery that harbor process weaknesses affecting safety. This guidance shares evidence-based steps to address problems such as wrong patient errors and lack of consistent barcode system use in the community setting.

Standardization is a common strategy for preventing practice deviations that can contribute to harm. This tool outlines a three-step process for minimizing the occurrence of wrong-side peripheral nerve blocks that involves preparing for the procedure, stopping to perform a two-person site confirmation, and then administering the block.

Record matching problems can have serious clinical impacts on patients. This report explores how to optimize demographic data integrity to improve patient record matching, as identifying information is increasingly integrated into shared record keeping systems. The investigation determined strategies to improve matching such as implementing standard data formats and disseminating best practices.

Cataract surgery, one of the most common procedures in the United States, is vulnerable to wrong-site errors. This consensus report reviews the types of errors associated with cataract surgery and discusses evidence-based practices to reduce risks.

This certificate program for laboratory professionals offers six courses aimed at enhancing participants' skills in establishing a just culture, identifying safety hazards, and assessing gaps in processes to reduce risks of specimen management errors.

This Web site provides resources to help reduce incidence of mislabeled blood specimens based on just culture concepts.

This publication advocates for open disclosure of errors in reproductive medicine.

This notice highlights the importance of standardizing wristband design and information to make their use consistent for every patient in the United Kingdom.

The Joint Commission requires time outs prior to surgical incision. This Web site includes information and resources for National Time Out Day, an initiative to raise awareness on the importance of surgical team time outs. The annual observation is in June.

This report discusses the impact that automated technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and barcoding, could have on health care in the United Kingdom and provides a plan to support their adoption in the National Health Service.

According to an AHRQ-supported study, wrong-site surgery occurred at a rate of approximately 1 per 113,000 operations between 1985 and 2004. In July 2004, The Joint Commission enacted a Universal Protocol that was developed through expert consensus on principles and steps for preventing wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-person surgery. The Universal Protocol applies to all accredited hospitals, ambulatory care, and office-based surgery facilities. The protocol requires performing a time out prior to beginning surgery, a practice that has been shown to improve teamwork and decrease the overall risk of wrong-site surgery. This Web site includes a number of resources and facts related to the Universal Protocol. Wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-patient errors are all now considered never events by the National Quality Forum and sentinel events by The Joint Commission. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have not reimbursed for any costs associated with these surgical errors since 2009.

This supplemental advisory recommends that a limited, standard set of colors and corresponding terms accompany wristband use.

This Web site provide resources for improving patient safety in the National Health Service, including a place for practitioners to ask questions and share experiences with one another.

Created in 2001 to institute changes in health care across the United Kingdom, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) presents their first report of patient safety incidents. The two-part report begins with a general discussion of incident reporting, the basis for a national reporting system, and the development of the Patient Safety Observatory. The second part builds on this framework by discussing how the acquired data can be used and translated into safer health care strategies. The report itself encompasses more than 85,000 collected incident reports with analysis, comparisons, and case studies to illustrate important safety issues for future efforts. This represents the first of a series of expected reports from NPSA on patient safety data to be published.