Preserving AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet): An essential tool for patient safety practitioners (14 May 2025)

Summary

Members of what is now the field of patient safety are fortunate to have a unique resource at their fingertips: the web-based AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet). PSNet is a comprehensive and continuously updated compendium of patient safety news and useful resources. Remarkably, it provides an annotated description of virtually every important paper on patient safety ever written. The collection offers proven frameworks, current information, and practical guidance that improves patient care and strengthens health system safety. But now, this irreplaceable resource is threatened. In the end of March 2025, with impending changes in the organisation in the US Department of Health and Human Services, the PSNet contract was cancelled.

Content

In an editorial for the Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, Albert Wu and colleagues describe why PSNet serves as an essential tool for healthcare professionals dedicated to advancing patient safety.

"For healthcare professionals dedicated to advancing patient safety, PSNet serves as an essential tool. The comprehensive collection offers practical guidance and strategic insight that support the development of effective safety protocols and clinical decision-making. The platform encourages system-based thinking and continuous learning by presenting real-world errors and near-misses in a constructive manner. By facilitating reflection and promoting accountability, PSNet contributes significantly to safer healthcare practices and plays a pivotal role in strengthening the overall culture of safety within health care organizations and the medical community.

"By presenting evidence, best practices, and thoughts of experts, PSNet can also help patient safety professionals make the case for the value of patient safety to top leaders and policy makers.

"We know that investing in patient safety improves the health outcomes for patients. Investing in patient safety also reduces the costs that occur when patients are harmed. In so doing, this also improves the efficiency of health systems. A continued investment in PSNet would contribute to the health and wellbeing of all who stand to benefit from improved patient safety. Discontinuing PSNet would be a great loss to the field of patient safety. We need to take steps to ensure it remains a vital and meaningful resource for all of us."

Related reading on the hub:

• The legacy and loss of AHRQ’s Patient Safety Net: A pillar of patient safety