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Showing results for tags 'Research'.
Found 953 results
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Content ArticleThis study from Shepard et al. aimed to explore staff perceptions of patient safety in the NHS ambulance services. The authors interviewed 44 participants from three organisational levels, including executives, managers and operational staff. They identified five dominant themes: varied interpretation of patient safety; significant patient safety risks; reporting culture shift; communication; and organisational culture. The findings demonstrated that staff perceptions of patient safety ranged widely across the three organisational levels, while they remained consistent within those levels across the participating ambulance service NHS trusts in England. The findings suggest that participants from all organisational levels perceive that the NHS ambulance services have become much safer for patients over recent years, which signifies an awareness of the historical issues and how they have been addressed. The inclusion of three distinct ambulance service NHS trusts and organisational levels provides deepened insight into the perceptions of patient safety by staff. As the responses of participants were consistent across the three NHS trusts, the identified issues may be generic and have application in other ambulance and emergency service settings, with implications for health policy on a national basis.
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Content Article‘Digital clinical safety’ refers to avoiding harm to patients and staff that could be caused by technologies manufactured, implemented and used in the health service. In this blog, Dr Kelsey Flott, Deputy Director of Patient Safety at the NHS Transformation Directorate, looks at the importance of digital clinical safety in driving quality improvement. She talks about how the Digital Clinical Strategy is being implemented and the drive to collect better evidence about the effectiveness of improvement technologies.
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Content ArticleWith the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, growing evidence shows that a considerable proportion of people who have recovered from COVID-19 have long-term effects on multiple organs and systems. A few longitudinal studies have reported on the persistent health effects of COVID-19, but the follow-up was limited to 1 year after acute infection. The aim of this study from Huang et al., published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, was to characterise the longitudinal evolution of health outcomes in hospital survivors with different initial disease severity throughout 2 years after acute COVID-19 infection and to determine their recovery status. The study found thategardless of initial disease severity, COVID-19 survivors had longitudinal improvements in physical and mental health, with most returning to their original work within 2 years; however, the burden of symptomatic sequelae remained fairly high. COVID-19 survivors had a remarkably lower health status than the general population at 2 years. The study findings indicate that there is an urgent need to explore the pathogenesis of long COVID and develop effective interventions to reduce the risk of long COVID.
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Content Article
Covid-19: Long term brain injury (14 March 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
SARS-CoV-2 infection can damage many organs other than the lungs. The most troubling is damage to the brain. A series of recent studies document long term brain-damage in as many as one quarter of all those infected regardless of the severity of the initial disease. Those numbers are daunting considering that an estimated 140 million Americans have been infected by SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms, such as brain fog, fatigue, depression and a host of other maladies, may be mild or incapacitating. Several studies warn that treatment of those with long term brain injury will strain the healthcare care system for years to come. Understanding the origin and treatment of Covid-19 related brain injury is a high priority for medical science. -
Content Article
Being an anti-racist clinician (4 February 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Health inequalities
Racism is a pervasive problem in Western society, leading to mental and physical unwellness in people from racialised groups. Psychology began as a racist discipline and still is. As such, most clinical training and curricula do not operate from an anti-racist framework. Although most therapists have seen clients with stress and trauma due to racialisation, very few were taught how to assess or treat it. Furthermore, clinicians and researchers can cause harm when they rely on White-dominant cultural norms that do not serve people of colour well. This paper from Racism is a pervasive problem in Western society, leading to mental and physical unwellness in people from racialized groups. Psychology began as a racist discipline and still is. As such, most clinical training and curricula do not operate from an anti-racist framework. Although most therapists have seen clients with stress and trauma due to racialisation, very few were taught how to assess or treat it. Furthermore, clinicians and researchers can cause harm when they rely on White-dominant cultural norms that do not serve people of colour well. This paper from Williams et al. discusses how clinicians can recognize and embrace an anti-racism approach in practice, research, and life in general. Included is a discussion of recent research on racial microaggressions, the difference between being a racial justice ally and racial justice saviour, and new research on what racial allyship entails. Ultimately, the anti-racist clinician will achieve a level of competency that promotes safety and prevents harm coming to those they desire to help, and they will be an active force in bringing change to those systems that propagate emotional harm in the form of racism. -
Content ArticleThis study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health aimed to investigate physical activity patterns in people with Long Covid, and the relationship between physical activity and Long Covid symptoms. It also aimed to find out the type of physical activity that people with Long Covid were being recommended, and what they were actually doing. The authors found that 75% of participants reported Long Covid symptoms worsening after physical activity. They also found that many participants received contradictory advice on whether or not to exercise with Long Covid.
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Content Article
Patient Safety Authority Annual Report 2021
Sam posted an article in International patient safety
The Patient Safety Authority (PSA) share its 2021 annual report, highlighting the agency’s expansion of education and reporting efforts to improve patient safety throughout the commonwealth. PSA is an independent state agency that collects reports of patient safety events from Pennsylvania healthcare facilities. Pennsylvania is the only state that requires acute care facilities to report all incidents of harm (serious events) or potential for harm (incidents). -
Content ArticleThis study in the journal Health Policy uses an innovative methodology to provide further understanding of the implementation process in the English NHS, using the examples of two distinctly different National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guidelines. The authors conclude that NICE and other national health policy-makers need to recognise that the introduction of planned change ‘initiatives’ in clinical practice are subject to social and political influences at the micro level as well as the macro level.
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Content ArticleComplexity is often talked about in health services research, but it has not been sufficiently studied. In this article in the journal BMC Medicine, the authors argue that in open systems characterised by dynamically changing inter-relationships and tensions, conventional research designs must be augmented by the study of how we can best deal with uncertainty, unpredictability and emergent causality. They propose an agenda for future research and invite researchers to contribute to the conversation.
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Content ArticleTimely written communication between primary and secondary healthcare providers is paramount to ensure effective patient care. In 2020, there was a technical issue between two interconnected electronic patient record (EPR) systems that were used by a large hospital trust and the local community partners. The trust provides healthcare to a diverse multiethnic inner-city population across three inner-city London boroughs from two extremely busy acute district general hospitals. Consequently, over a four-month period, 58,521 outpatient clinic letters were not electronically sent to general practitioners following clinic appointments. This issue affected 27.9% of the total number of outpatient clinic letters sent during this period and 42,251 individual patients. This paper from Patel et al. describes the structure, methodological process, and outcomes of the review process established to examine the harm that may have resulted due to the delay.
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Content ArticleOnly 1 in 3 people were fully recovered from COVID-19 a year after they left hospital. Being female, having obesity or being on a ventilator were each linked with ongoing symptoms, months after people were discharged (Long-COVID). Nearly 1 million people in the UK have so far been admitted to hospital because of COVID-19. The long-term effects of the infection in this group are only just coming to light. Researchers explored the impact of being hospitalised for COVID-19 on people’s mental and physical health, and on their employment. They looked at characteristics such as age and sex to see which were associated with worse recovery. They also assessed whether inflammation in the blood may be a potential target for treatment. This study described, for the first time, four different patterns of COVID-19 recovery. It found, for example, that some people with long-COVID had higher levels of inflammation. The researchers say that targeting treatment to specific clinical problems, such as treating inflammation in people with higher levels of inflammation, are promising approaches to aid recovery.
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Content ArticleThis article in the Daily Mail looks at the link between mild Covid infection, heart disease and other circulatory issues. The article describes the experience of TV doctor Xand van Tulleken, who suffered from recurrent atrial fibrillation after catching Covid-19 in March 2020. It then looks at the cardiovascular symptoms being reported by people with Long Covid, and highlights different research studies around the world which are establishing a link between Covid infection and cardiovascular problems.
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Content ArticleNaaheed Mukadam and colleagues investigated the incidence of diagnosed dementia and whether age at diagnosis and survival afterward differs among the UK's three largest ethnic groups. They used primary care electronic health records, linked Hospital Episode Statistics and mortality data for adults aged ≥65 years. They compared recorded dementia incidence 1997–2018, age at diagnosis, survival time and age at death after diagnosis in White, South Asian, and Black people. The study found that dementia incidence was higher in Black people. South Asian and Black people with dementia had a younger age of death than White participants and Black participants. The authors concluded that South Asian and Black peoples’ younger age of diagnosis and death means targeted prevention and care strategies for these groups should be prioritised and tailored to facilitate take-up.
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Content ArticleLong Covid Support and Long Covid Kids surveyed people with Long Covid about their experience of being reinfected with Covid. Responses were received from 484 adults and 112 children and young people. The study found that reinfection worsens the symptoms of Long Covid in the majority those who are still symptomatic. Reinfection causes a recurrence of Long Covid in 60% of those who were in recovery or remission. 89% of respondents first got Long Covid after their first infection, 10% after their second infection and 1% after their third. Most adult respondents had been vaccinated before their second infection.
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Content ArticleSerious incident (SI) investigations aim to identify factors that caused or could have caused serious patient harm. This study from Mary Dixon-Woods and colleagues aimed to use the Human Factors Analysis Classification System (HFACS) to characterise the contributory factors identified in SI investigation reports.
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Content ArticleAre you applying Safety-II principles to improve safety in maternity, A&E, ICU or anaesthetics? If so, Dr Ruth Baxter would love to interview you!
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Content ArticleThe aim of this study was to determine the distribution of formal patient complaints across Australia's medical workforce and to identify characteristics of doctors at high risk of incurring recurrent complaints. It found that a small group of doctors accounts for half of all patient complaints lodged with Australian Commissions. It is feasible to predict which doctors are at high risk of incurring more complaints in the near future. Widespread use of this approach to identify high-risk doctors and target quality improvement efforts coupled with effective interventions, could help reduce adverse events and patient dissatisfaction in health systems.
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Content ArticleThe aim of this study from Bismark et al. was to identify characteristics of doctors in Victoria, Australia, who are repeated subjects of complaints by patients.
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Content ArticleInvestigations of healthcare harm often overlook the valuable insights of patients and families. This review from Lauren et al. aimed to explore the perspectives of key stakeholders when patients and families were involved in serious incident investigations.
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Content ArticleHardeep Singh, an informatics leader, patient safety advocate and innovator has been awarded the Individual Achievement Award in the 20th John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards for demonstrating exceptional leadership and scholarship in patient safety and healthcare quality through his substantive lifetime body of work. Eric Thomas speaks to Hardeep in an interview for the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.
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Content ArticleTo provide high quality services in increasingly complex, constantly changing circumstances, healthcare organisations worldwide need a high level of resilience, to adapt and respond to challenges and changes at all system levels. For healthcare organisations to strengthen their resilience, a significant level of continuous learning is required. Given the interdependence required amongst healthcare professionals and stakeholders when providing healthcare, this learning needs to be collaborative, as a prerequisite to operationalising resilience in healthcare. As particular elements of collaborative working, and learning are likely to promote resilience, there is a need to explore the underlying collaborative learning mechanisms and how and why collaborations occur during adaptations and responses. The aim of this study from Haraldseid-Driftland et al. was to describe collaborative learning processes in relation to resilient healthcare based on an investigation of narratives developed from studies representing diverse healthcare contexts and levels.
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Content ArticleA handful of immunologists are pushing the field to take attributes such as sex chromosomes, sex hormones, and reproductive tissues into account.
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Content ArticleIssues with medication management and errors in medication administration are major threats to patient safety. This article for the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Network takes a look at the AHRQ's current areas of focus for medication safety. The authors look at evidence-based solutions to improve medication safety in three areas: High-risk medication use and polypharmacy in older adults Reducing opioid overprescribing, increasing naloxone access and use and other interventions for opioid medication safety Nursing-sensitive medication safety The article also explores future research directions in medication safety and highlights that these will advance patient safety overall.
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Content ArticleThe life expectancy of people with severe mental illness (SMI) is shorter than those without SMI, with multimorbidity and poorer physical health contributing to health inequality. Screening tools could potentially assist the optimisation of medicines to protect the physical health of people with SMI. The aim of this research from Carolan et al. was to design and validate a medicines optimisation tool (OPTIMISE) to help clinicians to optimise physical health in people with SMI.
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Content ArticleImproving health care quality and ensuring patient safety is impossible without addressing medical errors, so it is important to accurately estimate incidence rates and implement the most appropriate solutions to reduce medical errors. This systematic review in the journal Frontiers in Medicine aimed to identify interventions that have the potential to decrease medical errors. The authors concluded that although many interventions have been suggested and tried, patient safety has not significantly improved. They call on policymakers to focus more on implementing selected interventions effectively.
