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Toolkits

Patient safety toolkits provide practical applications of PSNet research and concepts for front line providers to use in their day to day work. These toolkits contain resources necessary to implement patient safety systems and protocols.

Latest Toolkits

Gilbert R, Asselbergs M, Davis D, et al. Healthcare Excellence Canada; 2023.

Patient safety requires a systems approach to identify problems and arrive at lasting solutions that reduce harm. This document encourages discussion amongst a broad base of stakeholders to address all forms of harm, such as discrimination, inequality, and psychological stress, in addition to physical injury. The resource insists these components be incorporated in work to close quality and safety gaps across the health care system.
Multi-use Website
Canadian Institute for Health Information, Health Excellence Canada.
Reducing preventable harm associated with health care is a worldwide goal. This Canadian initiative developed a measure to track unintended harm in acute care hospitals, a toolkit to accompany reduction efforts, and reports that assess the results of improvement efforts and provide data analysis.
Plymouth Meeting, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2023.
Experience from the sharp end helps to inform safety improvement initiatives. The results from this field survey will inform the revision of a high-alert medication list used to raise awareness about certain drugs that have heightened potential to cause patient harm if used incorrectly. The deadline for submitting comments is October 20, 2023.

Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; July 2023.

Obstetric hemorrhage and severe high blood pressure during pregnancy are leading known causes of preventable maternal harms in the United States. The AHRQ Safety Program for Perinatal Care, Phase 2 developed toolkits consisting of case scenarios, slides, and facilitators guides to work in tandem to address these threats to maternal safety. The materials inform training opportunities to improve the safety culture of labor and delivery units and decrease maternal and neonatal adverse events that result from poor communication and system failures.

All Toolkits (267)

Published Date
PSNet Publication Date
Displaying 61 - 80 of 267 Results
Multi-use Website

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). March 2020.

This website provides a report and data repository representing medical offices that administered the AHRQ Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) Medical Office Survey. Insights on safety culture reflect practices from 1,475 medical offices and more than 18,000 respondents. The current data submission deadline is September 22, 2023.
Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; March 2020. AHRQ Publication No. 20-0030.
Patient safety organizations (PSOs) collect and analyze protected incident data from across the United States. Expert analysis of PSO data can be utilized to inform design and implementation of local initiatives. This brochure provides guidance for health care organizations regarding benefits of working with a PSO and what to consider when choosing one.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2019.
Structured processes are important strategies for embedding safe care practices. This tool kit shares training modules and tools to support a 4-point practice to improve antibiotic prescribing and reduce hospital-acquired infections. Elements of the process center on diagnosis, testing, reassessment and duration.
Canadian Institute for Health Information. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Institute for Health Information; 2019.
This fact sheet presents a comparative analysis of 57 health indicators across 12 countries worldwide and gives Canada's current status on a variety of patient safety measures. While Canada showed strengths in reporting and responding to incidents, the data revealed a 14 percent increase in retained foreign objects since the previous analysis. 
Tools/Toolkit
Pittsburg, PA: UPMC Shadyside Hospital: 2019.
This brochure informs patients and their families about the Condition H helpline at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Shadyside hospital, which can be used to call a rapid response team to immediately address concerns in a patient's condition. The helpline was developed in memory of Josie King.
Multi-use Website
Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; August 2019.
The Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP), originally developed at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Peter Pronovost and colleagues, has been instrumental in driving patient safety improvement in several landmark patient safety initiatives. The CUSP approach emphasizes improving safety culture by through a continuous process of reporting and learning from errors, improving teamwork, and engaging staff at all levels in safety efforts.  Most recently, an AHRQ-funded project using the CUSP model achieved a 40% reduction of central line–associated bloodstream infections in intensive care units nationwide. This toolkit includes modules on how to build the CUSP team, identify recurring safety concerns, and improve teamwork and communication.
Horsham, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2019.
Hospitalized patients are at risk for medication errors. This set of tips seeks to help hospitalized patients contribute to the safe use of medications in their care. Recommendations include that patients know the reason they are taking each medication, speak up if any medications look different than previously, and talk with pharmacists when picking up discharge medications.
Durham, NC: Duke Center for Healthcare Safety and Quality; June 2019.
Improving teamwork and communication is a continued focus in the hospital setting. This toolkit is designed to help organizations create a culture that embeds teamwork into daily practice routines. Topics covered include team leadership, learning and continuous improvement, clarifying roles, structured communication, and support for raising concerns.
Canadian Patient Safety Institute: 2019.
Structured approaches to managing negative psychological consequences of medical errors on health care professionals, patients, and families are important for emotional healing and organizational learning. This webinar series featured discussions on peer support efforts and a toolkit for Canadian health care workers.
Boston, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement; 2019.
This toolkit provides access to nine key tools to help organizations improve teamwork, incident analysis, and communication as well as templates to support their use and instructions to begin associated processes. Featured tools include the Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation approach, huddle agendas, and failure modes and effects analysis.

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute Care Edition. April 25, 2019.

Newborns assigned temporary names are at increased risk for patient misidentification and wrong-patient errors. This newsletter article reports on the role of electronic health records in newborn misidentification and the unintended consequences associated with a Joint Commission set of recommendations to reduce risk. 
Commentary
SIS Patient Safety Committee. Spine Intervention Society.
This resource provides newsletters that target concerns associated with spinal pain interventions and offers safety strategies. The collection focuses on three primary areas: procedural contraindications, procedure-related complications, and injectate-related complications such as the safe use of multi-dose and single-dose vials.
Horsham, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2018.
Standardized practices have not been uniformly adopted to support safe IV medication therapy. This risk assessment tool will help organizations proactively identify process weaknesses that could contribute to patient harm. Users of the guide can also contribute to a national effort to collect data on current IV push practices. The data collection process is now closed.
Chicago, IL: Health Research & Educational Trust; 2018.
Proactive identification of conditions that degrade the diagnostic process can drive improvement. This toolkit provides resources to help organizations seeking to improve diagnosis. The publication includes case studies that illustrate implementation challenges and provides infrastructure enhancement suggestions for hospital teams as they design interventions to reduce diagnostic errors.
Itasca, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics; 2018.
Diagnostic error prevention in primary care is a persistent challenge. This AHRQ-funded toolkit provides guidance for ambulatory care organizations that seek to improve the reliability of diagnosis in children. The material focuses on tactics to enhance how practices recognize, track, and follow up on adolescent depression, pediatric elevated blood pressure, and actionable laboratory results.
SIDM Patient Engagement Committee. Evanston, IL: Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine; October 2018.
Patient engagement has been promoted as a strategy to enhance safety in health care. This toolkit helps patients organize information about their medical history, current concerns, symptoms, and medications to prepare them for medical appointments.
Horsham, PA; Institute for Safe Medication Practices: 2018.
This fact sheet lists medications with a high risk of causing significant harm to patients when incorrectly administered. The 2018 publication reflects insights gathered through a survey of current medication use in acute care facilities. The update includes changes such as expanded examples of antithrombotic agents listed and removal of IV radiocontrast media due to lack of errors reported with its use.
Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. Plymouth Meeting, PA: ECRI; August 2018.
Inadequate follow-up of test results can contribute to missed and delayed diagnoses. Developing optimal test result management systems is essential for closing the loop so that results can be acted upon in a timely manner. The Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety convened a working group to identify how technology can be used to facilitate improved communication and timely action regarding test results. This report summarizes the methods used by the working group and their findings. Recommendations include improving communication by standardizing the format of test results, including required timing for diagnostic testing responses, automating the notification process in electronic health records, and optimizing alerts to reduce alert fatigue. A past WebM&M commentary discussed a case involving ambulatory test result management.
Fact Sheet/FAQs
Patient Safety and Risk Management Service Delivery and Safety. Geneva, Switzerland; World Health Organization: August 2019.
This publication highlights statistics that illustrate the global impact of patient harm. The information provided includes the number of hospitalized patients injured during the care process, global costs of medication-related harms, and risks associated with radiation use.
Government Resource
National Health Service.
Data surveillance and transparency are core to measuring and informing improvement efforts. This website provides detailed data that links ambulatory care prescribing activity to National Health Service hospitalizations in an effort to clarify potential adverse medication events. The dashboard launched tracking gastrointestinal bleeding as an indicator of a medication-related adverse result and will expand to other indicators and conditions over time.