On May 15, winners of the inaugural John Q. Sherman Awards for Excellence in Patient Engagement were honored in award ceremonies at the 16th Annual NPSF Patient Safety Congress in Orlando, Florida. Nasia Safdar, MD, PhD, hospital epidemiologist for the University of Wisconsin Hospital, was recognized with the individual award of excellence.

The patient safety movement is now 20 years old, if we tie its origin to publication of “Error in Medicine” by Lucian Leape, MD, in 1994. The movement has evolved, with an expanding agenda, deeper research, and increasing numbers of people from all walks of healthcare devoting themselves to improvement.

ECRI Institute has added a new “top 10” list to its other offerings and to the popular trend of enumerating the pressing issues that healthcare organizations face today. ECRI describes the list of patient safety concerns…

Today the U.S. healthcare system is undergoing systemic transformation, as the focus shifts toward more value-based reimbursement for providers and a focus on increased quality of care along with expansion of access to health coverage.

Any time a change is made in the structure or processes associated with a given task, the risk of an unanticipated error is introduced, even if the changes are intended to reduce the risk of errors or improve the quality of outcomes.

Showing great wisdom, our mothers cautioned us to never judge a book by its cover. Yet, when we purchase wine, we often look for the fancy label design, interesting back label story, or colorful capsule covering the cork.

Recently, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) announced the release of an updated version of the successful teamwork and communication curricula TeamSTEPPS 2.0—Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety.

A little more than a decade ago the introduction of “smart” pumps with dose error-reduction systems (DERS) dramatically improved the safety of intravenous (IV) infusion therapy. Wireless connectivity enhanced system management and laid the foundation for integrating smart pumps with other systems and devices.

This second article in a four-part series on patient- and family-centered-care (PFCC) focuses on family presence during resuscitations and invasive procedures. Continuing the story from the first article in the series (Homme et al., 2014), Max’s mother relates her experience as she prepared to be separated from her son…

How much noise is heard over the course of the day in the average hospital unit? One study found alarm rates up to 700 per bed per day (ECRI Institute, 2013a; Graham & Cvach, 2010). When alarms sound so frequently, they simply cannot be managed adequately. Ineffective alarms lead to alarm fatigue among staff members…