Resource Links

We are gathering the best sources for information about patient safety. Click on the resource that interests you to visit that site.

Case studies

Diagnostic errors

Health care-associated infections

Organizations

Publications

Screening

Re-opening America

Case studies

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Real-life examples of safety scenarios are described in Impact Case Studies. An online web tool allows users to search for case studies by state or topic, including safety-related topics such as catheter-associated urinary tract infection, health care-associated infections and adverse drug events.

Diagnostic errors

Diagnostic errors: A primer from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Patient safety and quality improvement from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

ACT for Better Diagnosis from the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. Helmed by the Coalition to Improve Diagnosis, this initiative focuses on collaborative learning and crossdisciplinary sharing of knowledge to support and disseminate improvements in diagnostic accuracy, communication, and timeliness.

Ten principles for more conservative, care-full diagnosis: Annals of Internal Medicine

Moore Foundation’s Diagnostic Excellence Initiative

Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, published in 2015, this report investigates diagnostic errors, something that most patients will experience at least once in their lifetime.

Health care-associated infections

Antimicrobial stewardship toolkits
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released a set of toolkits to improve antibiotic stewardship in acute settings. The package includes a review: Antimicrobial stewardship: another focus for patient safety? This review summarizes the literature on antimicrobial stewardship to illustrate its relationship with patient safety. Interventions to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use included guidelines for controlling Clostridium difficile infection rates, mandatory outpatient parenteral therapy consultations, and performing medication reconciliation. AHRQ also has released an "Acute Care Hospital Toolkit" to support implementation of the "Four Moments of Antibiotic Decision Making" and improve antibiotic prescribing.

"Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2019" (2019 AR Threats Report) is a publication of the Antibiotic Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit within the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The full 2019 AR Threats Report, including methods and appendices, is available online.

State-based health care-associated infection prevention activities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

National Scorecard on Hospital-Acquired Conditions: Declines in HACs save 20,500 lives and $7.7 billion in costs. Released Jan. 29, 2019

Organizations

Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Patient safety information, including a toolkit and relevant upcoming events. 

World Health Organization: On Sept. 17, 2019, WHO launched a global campaign to create awareness of patient safety and urge people to show their commitment to making health care safer.

ECRI’s International Patient Safety Day website has patient safety guidance, medical device safety resources, patient stories and more.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Subscribe to AHRQ’s Patient Safety Listserv to get the latest information on the Agency’s work to improve patient safety.

Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine

The Joint Commission
Links to the 2019 National Patient Safety Goals.

World Health Organization Patient Safety

Canadian Patient Safety Institute

Publications

Patient Safety
Published by the Patient Safety Authority, an independent agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, this journal's first edition was published in September 2019. The publication says it publishes original, peer-reviewed research and data analyses, and gives patients a voice.

Screening

It Is Possible to Decrease Unnecessary Health Care Tests
Overuse of low-value services has been estimated to cost the health care system in the United States more than $200 billion per year, not to mention the potential patient harms and inconvenience of unnecessary care.  A new study in the December 2018 issue of "The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety" details the work of a Choosing Wisely^® campaign initiated in 2013 and intended to reduce unnecessary care and raise awareness among clinicians and the public to issues of health care overuse.  

Re-opening America

COVID-19 and Dentistry: Challenges and Opportunities for Providing Safe Care: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) effectively shut down approximately 198,000 active dental practitioners in the USA. As individual states begin to resume dental care, discussion has centered on how to provide safe oral health care, given the nature of the virus and how easily it may be dispersed during common dental procedures. The widespread transmission of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) places dental teams at high risk for becoming infected and falling ill with COVID-19, as well as transmitting the virus to other patients, due to the unique nature of dental care interventions. This primer, from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, summarizes best practices for infection control and prevention in the dental office setting, reviews Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) guidance on treating dental patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19, discusses access issues for patients needing oral healthcare, and offers various Federal and professional resources to support the reconfiguration of dental practice, the implementation of teledentistry, and the prioritization of dental care needs after practices reopen. This primer concludes with key policy and research priorities to support safe and effective dental care during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.