New Data Resources Provide Insights Into Patient Safety Risks

AHRQ Stats: Hospital Readmissions by Race

In 2020, non-Hispanic Black patients experienced 16 hospital readmissions per every 100 admissions, the highest rate among any race. Non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander patients faced the lowest rate at 11.7 per every 100 admissions. (Source: AHRQ Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #304, Characteristics of 30-Day All-Cause Hospital Readmissions, 2016-2020.)

Today's Headlines:

• New Data Resources Provide Insights Into Patient Safety Risks.
• Grantee Profile Highlights Dr. Barbara Trautner’s Work To Prevent Antibiotic Resistance.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• Featured Impact Case Study: University of Georgia Health Center Implements Results From AHRQ Survey on Patient Safety Culture.
• Register for Nov. 1 Webinar on Overview of AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ for New Users.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

New Data Resources Provide Insights Into Patient Safety Risks

AHRQ’s Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD) has published new chartbooks and updated dashboards to help healthcare organizations better understand patients’ safety risks.

The tools provide data on hospital patient safety incidents reported to the NPSD through Dec. 31, 2022. The new chartbooks highlight patterns and trends associated with in-hospital falls (PDF, 5 MB) and generic patient safety concerns (PDF, 5.5 MB).

The updated Data Submissions Dashboard and Generic Dashboard enable users to explore data from more than 2.6 million cumulative reports on patient safety concerns.

Grantee Profile Highlights Dr. Barbara Trautner’s Work To Prevent Antibiotic Resistance

Using antibiotics excessively and unsafely increases antibiotic-resistant infections, a serious public health risk. Barbara Wells Trautner, M.D., Ph.D., professor of infectious diseases and health services research at Baylor College of Medicine, is working to prevent this problem. A new AHRQ grantee profile highlights Dr. Trautner’s work, including her research on the prevalence of people taking antibiotics without a prescription, such as those who use someone else’s leftover medicine or obtain medicines from other countries. Access Dr. Trautner’s profile and profiles of other AHRQ grantees.

Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Learning from latent safety threats identified during simulation to improve patient safety.
• Multicomponent pharmacist intervention did not reduce clinically important medication errors for ambulatory patients initiating direct oral anticoagulants.
• Community validation of an approach to detect delayed diagnosis of appendicitis in big databases.

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

Featured Impact Case Study: University of Georgia Health Center Implements Results From AHRQ Survey on Patient Safety Culture

A new Impact Case Study describes how AHRQ’s Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS®) helped the University of Georgia Health Center (UHC) review safety culture and workflow efficiency to determine how to serve patients more effectively. UHC’s efforts included creating a new nursing triage clinic open to anyone without an appointment; a new patient safety navigator position to address patients’ diverse needs; and walk-in services and single therapy sessions for counseling and psychiatric services. Survey respondents rated UHC’s patient safety in terms of patient-centeredness, effectiveness, timeliness, efficiency and capacity to deliver equitable care. Access AHRQ’s Impact Case Study for more details, plus more AHRQ Impact Case Studies. 

Register for Nov. 1 Webinar on Overview of AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ for New Users

Registration is open for a webinar on Nov. 1 from 2 to 3 p.m. ET for an overview of AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS®) for new users. Speakers will detail the SOPS program, surveys, supplemental item sets, databases and resources available for SOPS users. AHRQ’s SOPS surveys ask healthcare providers and staff in hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes, community pharmacies and ambulatory surgery centers about the extent to which their organizational culture supports patient safety.

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Time to confirmatory study initiation after accelerated approval of cancer and noncancer drugs in the US. Jazowski SA, Vaidya AU, Donohue JM, et al. JAMA Intern Med 2023 Jul;183(7):737-9. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Neonatal intensive care workflow analysis informing NEC-zero clinical decision support design. Gephart SM, Tolentino DA, Quinn MC, et al. Comput Inform Nurs 2023 Feb;41(2):94-101. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Caregiver and clinician perspectives on discharge medication counseling: a qualitative study. Carroll AR, Schlundt D, Bonnet K, et al. Hosp Pediatr 2023 Apr;13(4):325-42. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Describing the monthly variability of hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile during early coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using electronic health record data. Lang K, Atchison TJ, Singh P, et al. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2023 Oct 9. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Socioeconomic factors are associated with severity of hospitalization in pediatric lupus: an analysis of the 2016 Kids' Inpatient Database. Soulsby WD, Lawson E, Okumura M, et al. Arthritis Care Res 2023 Oct;75(10):2073-81. Epub 2023 Mar 27. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Delivery strategies for postpartum care: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Saldanha IJ, Adam GP, Kanaan G, et al. Obstet Gynecol 2023 Sep 1;142(3):529-42. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Primary care telemedicine use among assisted living residents with dementia during COVID-19: race and dual enrollment status. Hua Y, Temkin-Greener H, Cai S. J Am Med Dir Assoc 2023 Aug;24(8):1157-8.e3. Epub 2023 May 18. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Trends in U.S. self-reported health and self-care behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hooper M, Reinhart M, Dusetzina SB, et al. PLoS One 2023 Sep 19;18(9):e0291667. Access the abstract on PubMed®.