Perspectives | AHRQ Patient Safety Network

Perspectives | AHRQ Patient Safety Network

Perspectives on Safety

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Gordon Schiff, MD

Improving Diagnosis, July 2018

Dr. Schiff is Associate Director of Brigham and Women's Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Quality and Safety Director for the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care. He was an invited expert and reviewer for the Improving Diagnosis in Health Care report of the National Academy of Medicine. We spoke with him about understanding and preventing diagnostic errors.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Shantanu Nundy, MD

Improving Diagnosis, July 2018

Dr. Nundy is the Director of the Human Diagnosis Project, a nonprofit organization taking a unique crowdsourcing approach to improving medical diagnosis. He also practices primary care at a federally qualified health center for low-income and uninsured individuals in Washington, DC. We spoke with him about his work with the Human Diagnosis Project.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Richard Hoppmann, MD

Point-of-Care Ultrasound: Safety and Utility, June 2018

Dr. Hoppmann is the Dorothea H. Krebs Endowed Chair of Ultrasound Education, Professor of Medicine, and Director of the Ultrasound Institute of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He founded and served as the first President of the Society of Ultrasound in Medical Education. We talked to him about safety and usability of point-of-care ultrasound.

PERSPECTIVE

Safety Considerations in Building a Point-of-Care Ultrasound Program

with commentary by Chris Moore, MD, Point-of-Care Ultrasound: Safety and Utility, June 2018

This piece highlights how point-of-care ultrasound can improve and expedite diagnosis and advocates for having an individual responsible for overseeing point-of-care ultrasound use within a health care delivery organization.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… David Blumenthal, MD, MPP

A Decade After HITECH, May 2018

Dr. Blumenthal is President of the Commonwealth Fund and served as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology from 2009-2011, during early implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and the accompanying Meaningful Use program. We spoke with him about the HITECH Act and lessons learned in health care since it was enacted.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… John Halamka, MD, MS

A Decade After HITECH, May 2018

Dr. Halamka is the International Healthcare Innovation Professor at Harvard Medical School, Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and an emergency physician. He is widely known as one of the most thoughtful and provocative experts on the subject of health IT. We spoke with him about the HITECH Act and the consequences—anticipated and otherwise—of the digitization of health care.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Harlan Krumholz, MD, SM

Post-Hospital Syndrome, April 2018

Dr. Krumholz is Professor of Medicine at the University of Yale School of Medicine and Director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. We spoke with him about readmissions and post-hospital syndrome, a term he coined in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine to describe the risk of adverse health events in recently hospitalized patients.

PERSPECTIVE

Patient Safety During Hospital Discharge

with commentary by Katherine Liang and Eric Alper, MD, Post-Hospital Syndrome, April 2018

This piece explores the risks patients face after hospital discharge and strategies to address them, such as patient education, Project RED, and the Care Transitions Intervention.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Linda Aiken, PhD, RN

Nursing and Patient Safety, March 2018

Dr. Aiken is Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor of Nursing, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at University of Pennsylvania. She is generally considered the nation's foremost expert on health policy as it relates to the nursing workforce. We spoke with her about how nurse staffing and the work environment can affect patient safety and outcomes.

PERSPECTIVE

Missed Nursing Care: A Key Measure for Patient Safety

with commentary by Jane Ball, PhD, and Peter Griffiths, PhD, Nursing and Patient Safety, March 2018

This piece explores how missed nursing care may explain the association between low nurse staffing levels and increased mortality in hospital patients.

ANNUAL PERSPECTIVE

The Weekend Effect

with commentary by Sumant Ranji, MD, 2017

A considerable body of evidence demonstrates worsened clinical outcomes for patients admitted to the hospital on weekends compared to those admitted on weekdays. This Annual Perspective summarizes innovative studies published in 2017 that helped clarify the magnitude of this effect and identify possible mechanisms by which it occurs.

ANNUAL PERSPECTIVE

Patient Engagement in Safety

with commentary by Rachel J. Stern, MD, and Urmimala Sarkar, MD, 2017

Patient engagement in safety has evolved from obscurity to maturity over the past two decades. This Annual Perspective highlights emerging approaches to engaging patients and caregivers in safety efforts, including novel technological innovations, and summarizes the existing evidence on the efficacy of such approaches.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Robert Hirschtick, MD

Clinical Documentation in the Modern Era, January 2018

Dr. Hirschtick is Associate Professor of Medicine at Northwestern Medicine, and the author of a number of prominent articles—many quite amusing—about the changes in medical practice wrought by information technology. We spoke with him about what it means to be a clinician in the modern era, particularly how digitization of health records has affected clinicians' notes.

PERSPECTIVE

EHR Copy and Paste and Patient Safety

with commentary by Shannon M. Dean, MD, Clinical Documentation in the Modern Era, January 2018

This piece explores concerns regarding the use of copy and paste in electronic health records and offers potential strategies to improve clinical documentation accuracy.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Karl Bilimoria, MD, MS

Surgical Safety, December 2017

Dr. Bilimoria is the Director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center of Northwestern University, which focuses on national, regional, and local quality improvement research and practical initiatives. He is also the Director of the Illinois Surgical Quality Improvement Collaborative and a Faculty Scholar at the American College of Surgeons. In the second part of a two-part interview (the earlier one concerned residency duty hours), we spoke with him about quality and safety in surgery.

PERSPECTIVE

The Evolution of Patient Safety in Surgery

with commentary by Robert M. Wachter, MD, Surgical Safety, December 2017

This piece explores progress of patient safety in the surgical field and where further improvement can be made, such as ongoing assessment of procedural skills along with video recording and review of surgical procedures.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Wanda Pratt, PhD

Patient-facing Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges for Patient Safety, November 2017

Wanda Pratt is a professor in the Information School and an adjunct in Biomedical and Health Informatics in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. We spoke with her about patient-facing technologies, including the opportunities and challenges for patient safety.

PERSPECTIVE

The Role of Patient-facing Technologies to Empower Patients and Improve Safety

with commentary by Ronen Rozenblum, MD, MPH, and David Bates, MD, MS, Patient-facing Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges for Patient Safety, November 2017

This piece explores how patient-facing technologies can enable patients to be more responsible for their care and improve the way clinicians practice.

INTERVIEW

In Conversation With… Jeffrey Starke, MD

Presenteeism: A Patient Safety Challenge, October 2017

Dr. Starke is Professor of Pediatrics–Infectious Disease at Baylor College of Medicine and previously served as Infection Control Officer at Texas Children's Hospital. We spoke with him about "presenteeism" (coming to work while ill) in health care and its impact on provider and patient safety.

PERSPECTIVE

Health Care Worker Presenteeism: A Challenge for Patient Safety

with commentary by Julia E. Szymczak, PhD, Presenteeism: A Patient Safety Challenge, October 2017

This piece explores the risks of presenteeism among health care workers and factors, such as cultural expectations, that contribute to its occurrence.