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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 101 - 120 of 267 Results
Measurement Tool/Indicator
ISMP; Institute for Safe Medication Practices.
Verbal orders are prevalent in all care environments, but they are often complex communications that can place patients at risk for harm. Given the increase of electronic prescribing, this survey explores current verbal medication ordering practices and strategies to ensure their effectiveness.
Incident Analysis Collaborating Parties. Edmonton, AB: Canadian Patient Safety Institute; 2012.
Performing incident analysis can help organizations understand why adverse events occur and how to prevent them. This toolkit provides a framework to help organizations gather insights from staff, patients, and family members regarding what caused the failure and why it happened and to guide efforts to prevent similar incidents.
Murthy VH. New England Journal of Medicine. 2016;375.
Large-scale and individualized strategies are needed to address opioid misuse. This website provides resources related to a national initiative to improve opioid prescribing practices by obtaining physician commitment to adhere to guidelines and screening methods.
Lioce L, Lopreiato J, Downing D, et al, eds and the Terminology and Concepts Working Group. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; January 2020. AHRQ Publication No. 20-0019.
The terms in the initial collection have been expanded to reflect changes in the field which now inlcudes artificial intelligence  and gamification. The document will continue to be refined and expanded over time.
Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; October 2016.
Antimicrobial stewardship is one strategy to reduce health care–associated infections in a variety of settings. This guide provides detailed instructions and four adaptable toolkits to establish antimicrobial stewardship programs in nursing homes.
Philadelphia, PA: Pew Charitable Trusts; September 6, 2016.
The usability of electronic health record (EHR) systems can affect clinicians' ability to provide safe patient care. This fact sheet summarizes the results of a stakeholder meeting that explored usability problems and identified three improvement strategies that focused on effective testing, user assessment of EHR safety, and sharing of lessons learned.
Boutwell A, Bourgoin A , Maxwell J, et al. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; September 2016. AHRQ Publication No. 16-0047-EF.
This toolkit provides information for hospitals to help reduce preventable readmissions among Medicaid patients. Building on hospital experience with utilizing the materials since 2014, this updated guide explains how to determine root causes for readmissions, evaluate existing interventions, develop a set of improvement strategies, and optimize care transition processes.
Measurement Tool/Indicator
Joint Commission Center for Tranforming Healthcare.
Development of high reliability remains an elusive goal for health care organizations. The Joint Commission has also advocated for achieving high reliability in health care. This website collects evidence and existing tools to help organizations work toward high reliability, including the ORO 2.0 assessment tool to enable hospital leaders evaluate their culture, leadership, and performance.
Kaprielian VS; Sullivan DT; Josie King Foundation.
The experience of Sorrel King and the death of her daughter has motivated health care leaders and the industry to improve patient safety. This curriculum provides a set of materials that incorporates lessons from Josie's Story into existing educational programs.
Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; May 2016.
Traditionally, health systems have disclosed adverse events to patients only through a lengthy process that involves providing limited information to patients and families, avoiding admissions of fault, and emphasizing protection of the clinicians involved. This approach may harm safety culture and has been criticized as not being patient-centered. Some pioneering institutions, such as the University of Michigan Health System, began implementing an alternative approach known as "communication and resolution," which emphasizes early disclosure of adverse events and proactive attempts to reach an amicable solution. Early adopters of this method have achieved notable results, including a decline in malpractice lawsuits. The CANDOR toolkit, developed by AHRQ as part of the Medical Liability Reform and Patient Safety Initiative, provides tools for health care organizations to implement a communication-and-resolution program. The toolkit includes videos, slides, gap analysis assessments and teaching materials. It has been tested in 14 hospitals in several different states. A PSNet interview with the chief risk officer of the University of Michigan Health System discusses the organization's pioneering efforts to implement a communication-and-response system.
Chicago, IL: American Hospital Association, Health Research & Educational Trust; 2016.
Checklists are a recommended method to reduce omissions in care, despite controversies regarding their impact on safety. This toolkit provides a collection of checklists that have been developed and field tested by participants in the Hospital Engagement Network to prevent harm associated with the use of central lines, adverse drug events, and falls.
Measurement Tool/Indicator
National Quality Forum.
Patient safety organizations collect data across various systems and states. This site supports review and comment of versions of common formats developed to provide a standardized method to collect and report incident data to patient safety organizations. 
Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety. Plymouth Meeting, PA: ECRI; February 2016.
Electronic health records have potential to improve health care, but they may also introduce unanticipated risks. This report describes the results of a group convened to explore strategies to enhance health IT safety. Focusing on copying and pasting health data from one record to another as the first area of concern, the report recommends enabling systems to identify what data has been copied in the electronic health record and where it came from, providing training to ensure the safe use of copy and paste, and regularly track and assess copying and pasting practices. The report includes tools to related to the recommendations. A WebM&M commentary explores the hazards associated with the use of copy and paste.
Horsham, PA: Institute for Safe Medication Practices; 2013.
Root cause analysis offers a structured way to detect and address system weaknesses. This workbook illustrates how root cause analysis can be applied to community pharmacy services to identify problems and design an action plan to implement improvement strategies.
Measurement Tool/Indicator
National Quality Forum; NQF.
The National Quality Forum (NQF) has been a leader in defining patient safety reporting measures. This website provides information about the third cycle of an NQF patient safety project that solicited new measures and reviewed existing patient safety metrics. A final report is now available.
Leeds, UK: Clinical Support Audit Unit, Health and Social Care Information Centre. 2012-2017.
The NHS Safety Thermometer was a tool developed by the National Health Service to facilitate staff participation in measuring patient harm in various care environments. This report collection explores the data collected on four types of health care–acquired conditions (pressure ulcers, falls, catheter–associated urinary tract infections, and venous thromboembolisms) in NHS patients over a 5-year period. The NHS Safety Thermometer is no longer used as an official data type. 
Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; October 2015.
Catheter–associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are common complications in hospitalized patients. This toolkit was developed as part of a national implementation project to reduce rates of CAUTIs in hospitals and apply principles of the comprehensive unit-based safety program. The toolkit includes modules that focus on implementation, sustainability, and resources to help hospitals design CAUTI prevention efforts at the unit level.
Chicago. IL: AHA Trustee Services, Health Research and Education Trust; February 2018.
Leadership commitment to improvement efforts is key to sustain patient safety initiatives. This toolkit consists of a workbook, board engagement self-assessment tool, and video modules to help leadership translate efforts from the board room to the front line to reduce medical errors in their hospitals.
Multi-use Website
Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare; TST.
Patient falls are preventable and can be addressed through quality and safety strategies. This toolkit provides a process to help health care organizations determine factors that contribute to falls in their facilities and design interventions to drive improvement.