Archives
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Patient Safety-December 2022
Vol. 4 No. 4 (2022)The December 2022 issue of Patient Safety is available to read and download at no charge.
Best wishes to our readers for a happy and safe holiday season! Our latest publication offers vital information, tools, resources, and articles that can help improve the safety and well-being of patients and healthcare workers in the new year.
- Taylor et al. describe a patient safety initiative that reduced the incidence of perioperative emergence delirium at a Veterans Affairs hospital—and provide you with everything you need to replicate their work.
- What is the past, present, and future of nursing? Nursing professor Eileen Fruchtl discusses how nursing education has been evolving and what it may become following the pandemic, and Toothaker et al. look at the challenges recently graduated nurses face as they transition into the workforce.
- John Olsen et al. describe the success and impact of Jefferson Health’s peer support program, RISE (Resilience in Stressful Events).
- Abigail Baluyot et al. share communication problems they identified in patient hand-offs between hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, and what they did to improve the process.
This issue also includes an important safety alert about the risk of air embolism during cardiac ablation procedures, an update to acute care reporting rates in Pennsylvania last year, and an inside look at how prison systems in Pennsylvania deliver healthcare to inmates.
Patient Safety is fully open access (no fees for authors or readers). We welcome submissions from all over the world. If your manuscript can help advance patient safety, please send it to us for consideration, and kindly share our journal articles with anyone who would benefit from them.
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Patient Safety-September 2022
Vol. 4 No. 3 (2022)The September 2022 issue of Patient Safety is now available to read and download at no charge.
In addition to celebrating the third anniversary of our journal, this month we recognize World Patient Safety Day with articles focused on the theme “Medication Without Harm,” and World Cancer Research Day with articles about improving care for oncology patients.
- Medication safety experts at the Patient Safety Authority and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia answer readers’ questions about meds, such as “How can I dispose of unused pills safely?” and “How do I measure my medication?”
- Lucy Bocknek et al. studied events concerning duplicate medication orders, investigating the causes and providing strategies to protect patients.
- Ioana Popescu offers a look at patient safety reporting in Canada and improvements they have implemented that may serve as a model for other healthcare systems.
- We asked oncologist Dr. Joe Jacobson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, about the challenges facing patients and clinicians in navigating complex diagnoses and healthcare systems, and how we might face them in the future.
- Cassandra Vonnes and Cindy Tofthagen outline a quality improvement initiative designed to better manage delirium in hospitalized cancer patients.
- Charles Pilcher and Mark Graber share how lessons learned in malpractice settlements can be leveraged to prevent future harm.
This edition also includes an important safety alert about harm caused by improper use of wheelchairs, the results of a culture of safety survey that initiated change at a healthcare facility, and a deeply personal account from a surgical resident on the impact of clinician burnout.
Patient Safety is fully open access (no fees for authors or readers). We welcome submissions from all over the world. If your work can help advance patient safety, please send us your next manuscript. Please also share this journal and its articles with your colleagues and acquaintances.
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Patient Safety-June 2022
Vol. 4 No. 2 (2022)The June 2022 edition of Patient Safety is now available to read and download at no charge. This issue features:
- A study showing that visitors can improve the safety of patients in the hospital—or, conversely, increase their risk for harm
- How a team in the U.K. investigated a communications delay between two electronic health records systems and its potential impact on patients
- Trends of harm reports from acute care hospitals and healthcare-associated infections in long-term care facilities from PA-PSRS—the nation’s largest event reporting database
- A data analysis that suggests medical errors involving pediatric dose calculations may be preventable with the proper technology
- The steps a pediatric hospital in Portugal took to determine the causes behind an adverse event and stop it from happening again
- A simple checklist that a health system introduced to increase staff’s awareness of and compliance with safety protocols
Our journal is fully open access (no fees for authors or readers), and we always welcome submissions from all over the world. Please consider sending us your next manuscript: original research articles, quality improvement studies, focused reviews, perspectives, commentaries.
If your work can help advance patient safety, we want to see it! We also appreciate you sharing Patient Safety among your colleagues and social networks.
Thank you to each author, peer reviewer, editorial board member, and Patient Safety Authority staff member who has joined with us in improving the health and well-being of patients everywhere. Have a safe summer!
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Patient Safety-March 2022
Vol. 4 No. 1 (2022)Our March 2022 issue is now available to read and download at no charge at PatientSafetyJ.com—just in time for Patient Safety Awareness Week!
This annual recognition event is about reminding everyone of the importance of making healthcare safer for patients and personnel, sharing lessons learned, recognizing the progress we’ve made, and inspiring change. We designed this journal to help achieve these goals, all year round. In this issue, we celebrate some of our successes and the people who made them possible with a roundup of the 2022 I AM Patient Safety Award winners. We hope you will read and promote their impactful stories and accomplishments, and join us in honoring these healthcare heroes.
Other highlights include
- Have you ever wanted to share your quality improvement study, but didn’t know where to start? It’s easier than you think, and we have a guide to help you on the road to publication.
- Wrong-site surgery is considered a “never” event, meaning it should never happen. Yet, it does. Here are some of the reasons why, and ways to prevent it.
- Around a half-million tonsillectomies are performed every year, but even routine surgeries carry risk.
- Researchers share how a hospital in Japan increased event reporting among physicians—which may help you implement a similar intervention.
- A close look at the factors leading to tracheostomy and laryngectomy airway safety events and strategies to prevent them, and how a major health system worked to improve the quality of tracheostomy care.
- Researchers analyze serious medication errors in emergency departments and discuss measures to prevent them.
- This community program puts patients in the role of mentors, to teach medical students something they can’t learn in a classroom: empathy.
If you missed our first online-only issue in January, dedicated to pharmacy practice and education, you can find it here. The next special issue of Patient Safety will focus on clinician burnout, fatigue, and depression. We are accepting manuscript submissions on this timely theme until May 31, 2022. If you have something you would like to contribute that can raise awareness of burnout and advance solutions and strategies, please send it to us!
We are always open to submissions from anywhere in the world for any of our regular, quarterly issues: original research articles, focused reviews, perspectives, commentaries, quality improvement studies, or other manuscripts related to that will advance patient safety. Thank you to our dedicated authors and readers around the globe, and to our peer reviewers, editorial board members, and Patient Safety Authority staff for joining with us in improving and saving lives.
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January 2022 Special Issue: Pharmacy Education and Practice
Vol. 4 No. SI (2022)In celebration of National Pharmacist Day, recognizing the importance of pharmacists and their crucial role in our health and well-being, today we are publishing a special issue of Patient Safety dedicated to pharmacy education and practice.
Our January 2022 issue is now available to read and download at no charge at PatientSafetyJ.com. It features timely manuscripts from pharmacy students, practitioners, educators, and experts: data articles, focused reviews, interviews, and perspectives and insights about advances and challenges in the field now and in the near future.
- Michael Cohen, founder and president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, discusses the importance of sharing information
- A close look at antibiotic stewardship in a community hospital emergency department
- Daniel Degnan shares how to develop good habits to better your life and work practices
- Learn how a hospital and pharmacy school collaborated to instill appreciation of safety culture in students
- Children and babies are uniquely vulnerable to medication errors in the hospital—but there are ways to keep them safe
- Patrick McDonnell describes the challenges and rewards of being an academic pharmacist
- Strategies for reducing immunization-related stress and anxiety that can improve safety and combat vaccine hesitancy
Thank you to our authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, and Patient Safety Authority staff for making Patient Safety possible—and special appreciation to this issue’s guest editors: Michael Cohen, ScD (hon.), DPS (hon.), RPh; Daniel Degnan, PharmD; and Patrick McDonnell, PharmD.
If you would like to contribute your next manuscript to our journal, please send it to us!
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Patient Safety—December 2021
Vol. 3 No. 4 (2021)Season’s greetings from Patient Safety!
Our December 2021 issue is now available to read and download at no charge at PatientSafetyJ.com.
As 2021 ends, the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife also draws to a close. The World Health Organization originally declared 2020 the Year of the Nurse, marking the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth, but they extended it for another year in recognition of nurses’ vital role in patient care during the pandemic. In this issue, one nurse shares what it is like on the front lines and the toll it has taken on her mental health—a deeply personal and painful story, yet a traumatic experience shared by many nurses around the United States.
Other highlights include
- Patient engagement expert Dr. Judith Hibbard discusses how “activated patients” help improve their own healthcare
- A data analysis and toolkit addressing urinary tract infections in long-term care facilities
- Learn one mother’s lessons for staying healthy, which helped her avoid problems common with aging
- A look at how new-onset atrial fibrillation presents challenges for ambulatory surgical facilities
- We know it can be unsafe when benzodiazepines are used with opioids in older adults. What risks are created when these drugs are administered together in the hospital?
- Researchers studied patient safety events related to perioperative delirium and agitation and share strategies to reduce risk.
Did you hear? Patient Safety just won a Gold award in the Fall 2021 Digital Health Awards! This is our sixth award, and we owe such success and recognition to our incredible authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, and Patient Safety Authority staff. If you would like to contribute your next manuscript to our journal, please send it to us!
Thank you for reading and sharing our journal in your social circles. Best wishes for the New Year!
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Patient Safety—September 2021
Vol. 3 No. 3 (2021)The September 2021 issue of Patient Safety is here, just in time for World Patient Safety Day. Read or download it now. Highlights from this month include
- How a team of nurses is revolutionizing sepsis diagnosis and treatment at WellSpan
- A first-of-its-kind analysis of safety events in the hospital involving patients admitted following a motor vehicle crash
- A look at the experiences of home care workers on the front lines of the pandemic
- A cross-comparison of verification methods for nasogastric tube placement
- A study examining whether combining live training with simulation improves paracentesis skills retention
- Stories of last year’s patient safety heroes
Patient Safety is fully open access, with no author fees. Each issue of our award-winning journal features original research, data from one of the world’s largest event reporting databases, perspectives, interviews, quality improvement projects, and more. We always welcome manuscript submissions that can help advance safety for all patients.
Thank you to our authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, Patient Safety Authority staff, and readers—and everyone who has been sharing this publication within their circle. Together we save lives.
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Patient Safety—June 2021
Vol. 3 No. 2 (2021)Vol. 3 No. 2 (2021): Patient Safety—June 2021
The June 2021 issue of Patient Safety is now available to read and download at no charge.
Each issue of our multiple award-winning journal delves into timely research, data from one of the world’s largest event reporting databases, perspective pieces, interviews, and more—which can be used right now to improve healthcare for patients. This month’s features include:
- A close look at the impact of isolation on patients
- A new tool that can help assess, predict, and prevent clinician burnout
- A successful performance improvement initiative from Ireland that can help improve surgical outcomes in other facilities
- Infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Steffanie Strathdee shares how her husband nearly died from a “superbug”—and what saved him
- An overview of serious events and incidents reported by acute care hospitals in 2020
- What happens when a critical care patient becomes a critical care patient themselves? Dr. Michael Leonard tells his story.
Patient Safety is fully open access, with no author fees—we want to see your next original manuscript! We always appreciate your help in spreading the word about this publication in your social network.
Thank you to each author, peer reviewer, editorial board member, and Patient Safety Authority staff who has contributed to our work and our goal of advancing safety for all patients.
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Patient Safety—March 2021
Vol. 3 No. 1 (2021)Vol. 3 No. 1 (2021): Patient Safety—March 2021
Our March 2021 issue is now available to read and download at no charge.
Each issue features the latest evidence-based research, thoughtful commentaries and editorials, interviews with healthcare leaders and safety advocates, and powerful patient stories. Highlights this month include:
- An open conversation on vaccination with an infection preventionist, a psychologist, and a former vaccine-hesitant parent of a son with autism
- An interview with Wendell Potter, former insurance executive turned whistleblower, on the brokenness of U.S. healthcare and how to understand it and protect yourself
- Authors share their new categorization schema for medication errors in outpatient care
- Smaller incisions make surgeries safer, but there still are risks; an analyst examines the common injuries and outcomes of various types of minimally invasive surgery
- An analysis of serious events related to medication reconciliation errors—and how to prevent them
- Two articles covering the long and the short of patient height: why it can affect both the quality and safety of care
Patient Safety is fully open access (no subscription fees or author fees), so please consider send us your next original manuscript and sharing our journal with your colleagues, students, families, friends, and patients.
Thank you to our authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, and Patient Safety Authority staff, who all play a part in the success of our journal and in advancing patient safety everywhere.
Together we save lives.
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Patient Safety-December 2020
Vol. 2 No. 4 (2020)Vol. 2 No. 4 (2020): Patient Safety— December 2020
Our December 2020 issue is now available to read and download at no charge.
Each issue features the latest evidence-based research, thoughtful commentaries and editorials, interviews with healthcare leaders and safety advocates, and powerful patient stories.
- An in-depth study of variables associated with wrong-site surgeries in Pennsylvania, demonstrating that this “never event” still happens all too often
- An interview with Queen Quet, head of state of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, about life on the Sea Islands, overcoming racial disparities in healthcare, and more
- A focus on sepsis, a severe condition that is difficult to distinguish from the flu and COVID-19
- A polio survivor who never had the choice to take the vaccine shares her struggles with the aftereffects of the disease since she contracted it in childhood
- Researchers delve into wrong-patient errors related to health information technology
- A timely look at risks involved with using prone positioning to treat patients for acute respiratory distress syndrome, a common complication of COVID-19 and other infections
Thank you to our authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, and Patient Safety Authority staff, who all play a part in the success of our journal and in advancing patient safety everywhere. Patient Safety is fully open access (no subscription fees or author fees), so please consider sending us your next original manuscript and sharing our journal with your colleagues, students, families, friends, and patients. Together we save lives.
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Patient Safety - September 2020
Vol. 2 No. 3 (2020)Vol. 2 No. 3 (2020): Patient Safety — September 2020
The September 2020 issue of Patient Safety marks the first anniversary of our journal! Read it online at no charge or download a PDF version at PatientSafetyJ.com.
Each issue features the latest evidence-based research, thoughtful commentaries and editorials, interviews with healthcare leaders and safety advocates, and powerful patient stories.
- An interview with Dr. Tejal Gandhi and Dr. Jeff Brady about the recently released National Action Plan for Patient Safety in the United States
- A global look at innovative solutions to patient safety falls
- A timely examination of how process breakdowns contribute to delays in recognizing, treating, and preventing the spread of respiratory infections, like the flu and COVID-19
- A social worker raises awareness of intimate partner violence, a serious problem that gets worse during periods of isolation
- A survivor of COVID-19 shares his hospital experience and recovery from the disease
- A researcher takes a close look at nonsuicidal self-injury among children and adolescents
Thank you to our authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, and Patient Safety Authority staff, who all play a part in the success of our journal and in advancing patient safety everywhere. Patient Safety is fully open access (no subscription fees or author fees), so please consider sending us your next original manuscript and sharing our journal with your colleagues, students, families, friends, and patients. Together we save lives.
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Patient Safety Journal - June 2020
Vol. 2 No. 2 (2020)Vol. 2 No. 2 (2020): Patient Safety — June 2020
The June 2020 issue of our journal, Patient Safety, is now available! Read it online at no charge or download a PDF version at PatientSafetyJ.com.
Each issue of Patient Safety delivers new evidence-based research and data analytics, engaging editorials, inspiring stories from patients and families, and interviews with healthcare experts and advocates.
- “DX: Crisis”–a timely discussion with SaraKay and Stanton Smullens, MD, concerning clinician burnout, depression, self-care strategies, and COVID-19
- Two additional perspectives on how the pandemic is affecting patient safety: a commentary from William Wenner, MD, and a study of COVID-19–related event reports throughout Pennsylvania
- Ann Green shares “How Hospice Saved My Mother’s Life”
- Researchers look at in-hospital substance use
- An overview of serious events and incidents reported by acute care hospitals in 2019
- A study on denture impaction events along the gastrointestinal tract—the first of its kind
Thank you to our authors, peer reviewers, Patient Safety Authority staff, and editorial board members who help make this journal possible. Patient Safety is fully open access (no subscription fees or author fees), so please consider sending us your next original manuscript. We always appreciate you sharing the journal widely among your friends, family, colleagues, students, and patients. Together we save lives.
- “DX: Crisis”–a timely discussion with SaraKay and Stanton Smullens, MD, concerning clinician burnout, depression, self-care strategies, and COVID-19
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Patient Safety — March 2020
Vol. 2 No. 1 (2020)A new issue of our journal, Patient Safety, is now available! Read the March 2020 edition online at no charge or download a PDF version at PatientSafetyJ.com.
Each issue of Patient Safety brings you the latest evidence-based research and data analytics, interviews with healthcare experts and advocates, thought-provoking editorials, and inspiring stories from patients and families. Our cover story, “I Am the Zebra,” is a patient commentary from Missy Adams and her husband, Solomon, detailing her long, difficult journey toward an accurate diagnosis.
In this issue we also hear from Mary Ellen Mannix, who shares the tragic story of her son James and how her efforts to understand what happened to him led her to speak up for other patients. Additional highlights: A practice improvement paper about an organization’s efforts to decrease medication errors related to patient weight discrepancies, a new safety self-assessment tool to help prevent vancomycin-related events, and a look at how safety is compromised when hospital equipment cannot accommodate obese patients. Members of the LGBTQ community tell us in their own words about their healthcare experiences and how we can provide safe care for all patients, and we celebrate the winners of the Patient Safety Authority’s 2020 I AM Patient Safety Awards.
Thank you to all our authors, peer reviewers, Patient Safety Authority staff, and editorial board members who help make this journal possible. Patient Safety is fully open access (no subscription fees or author fees), so please consider submitting an original manuscript to us.
There’s something in Patient Safety for everyone—healthcare workers, researchers, and patients alike. If you enjoy our journal, we appreciate you sharing it within your social circle, including friends, family, colleagues, students, and patients! Together we save lives.
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Patient Safety — December 2019
Vol. 1 No. 2 (2019)
We are proud to announce the publication of the second issue of our journal, Patient Safety. You can read it now at no charge at PatientSafetyJ.com or download a PDF.Each issue of Patient Safety delivers high-quality content, including evidence-based research articles and advanced analytics; interviews with leaders in their fields; editorials to spark discussion on hot-button topics, and inspiring patient commentaries—such as our cover story by Kristin Aaron, who shares how her son’s tragic healthcare journey has transformed patient safety.
Other highlights in the December issue include an interview with Kathleen Noonan, CEO of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, about meeting the complex needs of an at-risk population; a data analysis on events related to telemetry monitoring; a research article about an initiative that used trigger tools to decrease adverse drug events; a look at suicide prevention strategies; and much more!
Thank you to the many contributing authors, peer reviewers, Patient Safety Authority staff, and editorial board members who help make Patient Safety possible. If you would like to see your work in Patient Safety, please consider submitting your original manuscripts to us. The journal is fully open access: There are no subscription fees or author fees. And if you would like to become a peer reviewer for Patient Safety, please let us know!
You can also be a part of Patient Safety by sharing it with your friends, family, colleagues, students, and patients! Together we save lives.
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Patient Safety - September 2019
Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019)
Welcome to the first issue of Patient Safety!Brought to you by the Patient Safety Authority, an independent agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, this brand-new journal is unlike any other you’ve seen. Since patients are at the heart of everything we do, each issue not only publishes original, peer-reviewed research and data analyses, but also gives patients a voice—on the page and behind the scenes.
Patient Safety has no subscription fees or author fees: It’s available now to read online, as well as free to publish in. Once you’ve looked over this issue, send us your own research articles, essays, studies, and other submissions. If your manuscript will help advance patient safety, we want to see it!
Read articles from the September 2019 issue online or download the full issue as a PDF for printing and sharing. Remember to subscribe to receive future issues and news about Patient Safety. Submit your work to us and tell your friends and colleagues all about the new journal on the block.
Together we can save lives.
