Diagnostic errors and concerns over maternal health are among the top safety concerns for patients, according to annual report. The annual report was complied by ECRI, an independent, nonprofit organization, that focused on safety in the healthcare industry. “Unsafe healthcare delivery harms millions of patients,” said Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, president and CEO, ECRI, in a press release. “Our annual patient safety report provides a roadmap to help healthcare leaders know what goes wrong and how to prevent harm.”The top 10 list was compiled using a data base containing 3.2 million patient safety events. To download the full report, visit https://www.ecri.org/landing-top-10-patient-safety-concerns-2020Â
1. Missed and Delayed Diagnoses
Diagnostic errors are very common. Missed and delayed diagnoses can result in patient suffering, adverse outcomes, and death.
2. Maternal Health across the Continuum
Approximately 700 women die from childbirth-related complications each year in the United States. More than half of these deaths are preventable.
3. Early Recognition of Behavioral Health Needs
Stigmatization, fear, and inadequate resources can lead to negative outcomes when working with behavioral health patients.
4. Responding to and Learning from Device Problems
Incidents involving medical devices or equipment can occur in any setting where they might be found, including aging services, physician and dental practices, and ambulatory surgery.
5. Device Cleaning, Disinfection, and Sterilization
Sterile processing failures can lead to surgical site infections, which have a 3% mortality rate and an associated annual cost of $3.3 billion.
6. Standardizing Safety across the System
Policies and education must align across care settings to ensure patient safety.
7. Patient Matching in the EHR
Organizations should consistently use standard patient identifier conventions, attributes, and formats in all patient encounters.
8. Antimicrobial Stewardship
Overprescribing of antibiotics throughout all care settings contributes to antimicrobial resistance.
9. Overrides of Automated Dispensing Cabinets
Overrides to remove medications before pharmacist review and approval lead to dangerous and deadly consequences for patients.
10. Fragmentation across Care Settings
Communication breakdowns result in readmissions, missed diagnoses, medication errors, delayed treatment, duplicative testing and procedures, and dissatisfaction.
