Top 10 patient safety concerns
The greatest threats to patient safety.
Every year since 2009, the ECRI Institute has created a “Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns” list, designed to help healthcare organizations identify and address threats to patient safety. ECRI bases the list on data from, and research requests made to, its patient safety organization, topics reflected in its weekly Healthcare Risk Control Alerts, and voting by a panel of ECRI and non-ECRI Institute experts.In addition, ECRI says, the list “identifies concerns ⦠such as new risks, existing concerns that are changing because of new technology or care delivery models, and persistent issues that need focused attention or pose new opportunities for intervention.” Here is the 2019 list. Â
EHR accuracy
“The information [in EHRs] must be accurate and…written so that future clinicians looking at the EHR can understand it. If you have faulty information or missing test results, you are predisposed to making a diagnostic error.”
-Patricia Stahura, RN, MSN, senior analyst and consultant, ECRI Institute
Antibiotic use
“Antibiotic stewardship does not mean withholding necessary treatment. But we have casually and cavalierly handed around the candy dish of antibiotics without a second thought as to how we may be harming our patients.”
-Sharon Bradley, RN, CIC, senior infection prevention and patient safety analyst/consultant, ECRI Institute
Burnout
“Healthcare providers tend to be self-critical, high functioning and very motivated. They will increase demand on themselves and have high expectations for their own performance, which is laudable, but can also be problematic.”
-Ellen S. Deutsch, MD, MS, medical director, ECRI Institute
Mobile health technology
“Risks of mobile health technology include lack of regulation of new technologies, barriers to ensuring that providers are accurately receiving the data a device collects, and the possibility that a patient is not using the technology correctly or not using it at all.”
-ECRI Institute
Care coordination for behavioral health
“In many healthcare settings, behavioral and physical health are siloed … Working with external resources can improve care coordination and identify ways to develop behavioral health skills and support in non-behavioral-health settings.”
-ECRI Institute
Detecting changes in a patient’s condition
“Transitions of care and handoffs are … fraught with danger. Passing along and receiving the correct information sets providers up for success.”
-Mary Rodger, BSN, RN, senior risk manager and consultant, ECRI Institute
Providers’ skill levels
“ECRI Institute has received reports of adverse events occurring because a healthcare professional was unfamiliar with equipment, such as infusion pumps and robotic-assisted surgical systems, or lacked competence with procedures and processes, ranging from Foley catheter insertion to management of a hemorrhaging patient after childbirth.”
-ECRI Institute
Early recognition of sepsis
“We’re in a time rush. Can we intervene quicker to get patients the care they need to prevent shock and death?”
-James Davis, MSN, RN, senior infection prevention and patient safety analyst, ECRI Institute
IV-induced infections
“Any time you break the skin, you’re breaking down the body’s first line of defense against infection. Patient might not need a peripheral line, but your staff might put one in just because the patient is admitted and they may need it at some point.”
-James Davis, MSN, RN, senior infection prevention and patient safety analyst, ECRI Institute
Standardizing system-wide safety efforts
“Healthcare organizations as we used to know them are now becoming nationwide ‘megasystems’… How do organizations internally structure themselves to address patient safety needs?”
-Sheila Rossi, MHA, manager, ECRI Institute patient safety organization