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Content ArticleVirtual wards, also known as hospital at home, are increasingly being used across the NHS to support people who would otherwise need hospital care to receive treatment and monitoring at home. A new NIHR-funded study led by University of Manchester researchers explored how safe care is delivered in virtual wards, highlighting the often unseen work carried out by patients and carers as they undertake key elements of risk-work previously held by clinicians. The findings show that virtual wards can provide a safe alternative to hospital care for some patients, allowing people to recover at home while still receiving clinical oversight. However, patients and carers often take on more practical and emotional responsibility than may be recognised as they assume duties that would normally be carried out by clinicians in hospital settings. This includes monitoring symptoms, managing equipment and responding to signs of deterioration, especially overnight or outside normal working hours. The researchers suggest that hospital at home services that combine technology with in‑person home visits could help make care safer, more flexible, and accessible for a wider range of patients. Recognising and supporting the work undertaken by patients and carers is essential to ensure virtual wards are safely delivered. As virtual wards expand as a key component of NHS policy to shift acute care from hospital to community settings, practice must ensure there is space for relational and training support for clinicians, patients, and carers so that remote acute care can be safely implemented across health systems.
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Content ArticleThis evidence review aims to examine what it feels like to experience ‘well-led’ health and/or care services and organisations, from the perspectives of people with lived experience and people working in health and social care. It is an extension to ‘Making it Real’ - a framework and set of statements co-produced by Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that describe what good, co-ordinated and personalised care and support look like from the perspective of people drawing on it.
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News ArticleMillions of people with breast cancer could safely avoid chemotherapy as scientists have developed a DNA test that can distinguish between patients who are likely to benefit from the treatment and those who are not, according to trial results. The international study found that more than two-thirds of its participants could be spared the side of effects of chemotherapy and treated with hormone therapy alone. Chemotherapy can cause fatigue, nausea, hair loss, a weakened immune system and fertility issues. The study, led by University College London (UCL), involved more than 4,000 newly diagnosed patients over the age of 40 in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. The primary treatment for breast cancer is usually surgery to remove tumours. Chemotherapy is often recommended afterwards to diminish the risk of return. It is also regularly offered to people with early-stage breast cancer that has spread to the nearby lymph nodes. Clinicians are concerned the treatment provides little benefit to those with the most common type of breast cancer, UCL said. The university said more than 5,000 NHS patients a year could avoid chemotherapy as a result of the trial. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 May 2026
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Content ArticleThe massive roll-out of new and repurposed medicines in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) highlights the need for more efficient pharmacovigilance systems, including use of digital technologies. This study reports a large pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of the smartphone app Med Safety in improving suspected adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting by healthcare workers to Uganda's National Pharmacovigilance Centre. Between Aug 11, 2020 and Nov 1, 2022, 367 clusters (healthcare facilities providing dolutegravir-based combination antiretroviral therapy in Uganda) received the allocated intervention (184 in the intervention group and 183 in the control group), with 2464 health-care workers (1211 in the intervention group and 1253 in the control group). In the intervention group, health-care workers received pharmacist-delivered training in Med Safety and traditional ADR reporting methods. The control group received the same training as the intervention group except for Med Safety training. The primary outcome was the cluster-level ADR reporting rate at the end of follow-up (at least 12 months) and was analysed in all sites that received the allocated intervention. Med Safety use was found to increase ADR reporting rates among health-care workers in Uganda, particularly non-serious and dolutegravir-related ADRs. These findings suggest that integrating digital technologies into pharmacovigilance systems could strengthen drug-safety monitoring in Uganda and other LMICs.
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EventuntilThis webinar, as part of Patients Association's Patient Partnership Week, will explore how organisations can partner with patients in the use of health data, placing trust and transparency at the heart of decision making. It will examine how technology currently uses patient data, why involving patient panels is essential, and how this supports better outcomes and public confidence. Register
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Content ArticleA new study reveals how the immune system behaves in people who have had complications from surgical mesh implants. Result? There is evidence of ongoing, abnormal immune activation throughout the body, not just at the implant site. Most research on mesh complications looks at local problems such as damage or inflammation where the mesh is placed. However, this paper asks a bigger question. Do these patients also have a whole‑body (systemic) immune response, not just a local one? The answer appears to be YES. The study was conducted by a team at the NHS Newcastle Mesh Complication Centre who say the mechanisms underpinning mesh complications remain largely unknown. Also, there are no reports characterising systemic immune dysregulation – in other words, the immune system not working as it should. The paper shows that people with mesh complications have measurable changes in their immune system throughout the body, suggesting complications may be partly driven by systemic inflammation not just local damage.
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News ArticleTaking antidepressants during pregnancy does not increase the risk of children going on to develop autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to an analysis of more than half a million pregnancies. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Hong Kong and published in the Lancet Psychiatry, analysed data from 37 existing studies that included 600,000 pregnant women who had taken antidepressants, and 25 million women who had no antidepressant use during their pregnancies. Before controlling for key factors such as pre-existing mental health conditions, the analysis found that antidepressant use by the mother during pregnancy was associated with a 35% increased risk of ADHD and a 69% increased risk of autism. However, when controlling for confounding factors such as pre-existing mental health conditions, this risk became non-significant. This means the meta-analysis found no significant link between antidepressant use during pregnancy and a greater risk of autism and ADHD in children, after controlling for the mother’s mental health or other influencing factors such as genetics. Dr Wing-Chung Chang, a professor at the University of Hong Kong and lead author of the study, said: “We know many parents-to-be worry about the potential impact of taking medication during pregnancy; our study provides reassuring evidence that commonly used antidepressants do not increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD in children. “While all medications carry risks, so too does stopping antidepressants during pregnancy due to an increased risk of relapse. Therefore, for women with moderate-severe depression, doctors and patients must carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits of continuing antidepressant treatment during pregnancy against the potential harms of untreated depression. “Although our study found a small increase in the risk of autism and ADHD in the children of women who had used antidepressants during pregnancy, it also found that this risk disappeared when we accounted for other factors. The increased risk was also seen in the children of fathers who took antidepressants and of mothers with antidepressant use before, but not during, pregnancy. “Together, this suggests that it is not the antidepressants themselves causing an increased risk in autism and ADHD but it is more likely to be due to other factors, including genetic predisposition to conditions such as ADHD, autism, and mental health conditions.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 May 2026
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Ted Baker discusses a new paper by Health Services Safety Investigation Body (HSSIB) colleagues and highlights the call for a fundamental rethink of how the NHS views and prioritises patient safety. Ted argues that healthcare has long confused quality with safety, often treating safety as just one dimension alongside outcomes and patient experience. This framing has encouraged a false idea that trade‑offs are acceptable, particularly under pressure, even though safety and outcomes are interdependent and should never be weighed against one another. A new HSSIB research paper reviewing 118 national investigation reports, found that where trade‑offs occurred, safety almost always lost out to efficiency, timeliness or experience initiatives, and there were no examples where prioritising safety harmed other aspects of quality. This directly challenges claims that the NHS has focused too much on safety.
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News Article
FDA blocks publication of studies showing covid and shingles vaccines to be safe
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Officials from the US Food and Drug Administration have blocked the publication of several studies of Covid-19 and shingles vaccines conducted by the agency’s own scientists, it has emerged. Each blocked study showed the safety of widespread use of vaccines for both conditions. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed the move, first reported by the New York Times. FDA scientists conducted the studies, in which they analysed millions of patient records, with the help of a data firm and millions in taxpayer dollars. Two Covid-19 vaccine studies were accepted for publication by medical journals, but in October 2025 the authors were told to withdraw them. In February 2026 top FDA officials did not sign off two studies of Shingrix, a shingles vaccine. The abstracts required approval for submission to a conference on drug safety. When questioned by The BMJ the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA, defended the decision. “The studies were withdrawn because the authors drew broad conclusions that were not supported by the underlying data,” Emily Hilliard, HHS press secretary, told The BMJ. “The FDA acted to protect the integrity of its scientific process and ensure that any work associated with the agency meets its high standards.” Critics said the blocks on the studies were another example of antivaccine sentiment from the HHS head, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Read full story Source: BMJ, 8 May 2026 -
Content ArticleQualitative research methods explore and provide deep contextual understanding of real world issues, including people’s beliefs, perspectives, and experiences. Whether through analysis of interviews, focus groups, structured observation, or multimedia data, qualitative methods offer unique insights in applied health services research that other approaches cannot deliver. However, many clinicians and researchers hesitate to use these methods, or might not use them effectively, which can leave relevant areas of inquiry inadequately explored. Thematic analysis is one of the most common and flexible methods to examine qualitative data collected in health services research. This article offers practical thematic analysis as a step-by-step approach to qualitative analysis for health services researchers, with a focus on accessibility for patients, care partners, clinicians, and others new to thematic analysis. Along with detailed instructions covering three steps of reading, coding, and theming, the article includes additional novel and practical guidance on how to draft effective codes, conduct a thematic analysis session, and develop meaningful themes. This approach aims to improve consistency and rigor in thematic analysis, while also making this method more accessible for multidisciplinary research teams.
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News Article
AI outperforms doctors in Harvard trial of emergency triage diagnoses
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A groundbreaking Harvard study has found that AI systems outperformed human doctors in high-pressure emergency medicine triage, diagnosing more accurately in the potentially life and death moments when people are first rushed to hospital. The results were described by independent experts as showing “a genuine step forward” in the clinical reasoning of AIs and came as part of trials that tested the responses of hundreds of doctors against an AI. The authors said the results, published in the journal Science, showed large language models (LLMs) “have eclipsed most benchmarks of clinical reasoning”. One experiment focused on 76 patients who arrived at the emergency room of a Boston hospital. An AI and a pair of human doctors were each given the same standard electronic health record to read – typically including vital sign data, demographic information and a few sentences from a nurse about why the patient was there. The AI identified the exact or very close diagnosis in 67% of cases, beating the human doctors, who were right only 50%-55% of the time. It showed the AIs’ advantage was particularly pronounced in triage circumstances requiring rapid decisions with minimal information. The diagnosis accuracy of the AI – OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model – rose to 82% when more detail was available, compared with the 70-79% accuracy achieved by the expert humans, though this difference was not statistically significant. But it is not curtains for emergency doctors yet, the researchers said. The study only tested humans against AIs looking at patient data that can be communicated via text. The AI’s reading of signals, such as the patient’s level of distress and their visual appearance, were not tested. That means the AI was performing more like a clinician producing a second opinion based on paperwork. “I don’t think our findings mean that AI replaces doctors,” said Arjun Manrai, one of the lead authors of the study who heads an AI lab at Harvard Medical School. “I think it does mean that we’re witnessing a really profound change in technology that will reshape medicine.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 April 2026 -
Content ArticleSurgical implants, such as joint replacements, are used for many serious conditions. Innovation continues to supply new implants, including outputs of the soft robotics revolution. However, they carry risk of complications with potentially devastating consequences. This opinion paper provides the reflections of two surgical technologists on present challenges to safety, efficacy and broad implementation of medical implants. They highlight lack of familiarity with implant surgery in healthcare services, with concomitant risk. First-in-human application of new implants is not sufficiently standardised and regulated. IDEAL-D is a structured framework for medical devices (Idea, Development, Exploration, Assessment, Long-term study). Once CE-marked and approved for mainstream use, there are problems with the implementation. ‘Early adopter’ surgeons and centres face cultural inertia, lack of funding support and issues around training, especially learning curves. Patient selection may not be well-defined, and complications inaccurately reported, affecting implant dissemination detrimentally. The Cumberlege report showed how harmful this can be. There is need to standardise early clinical studies. Implementation of implantable devices requires changes to whole-team training, funding and post-implementation reporting. The IDEAL-D framework represents an important step, but other system-wide changes are required if implants are to achieve their intended clinical impact.
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Content ArticleDespite being regarded as the gold standard, outpatient hysteroscopy (OPH) is associated with inconsistent outcomes and pain, while the clinical, organisational, and personal determinants shaping patient-centred experience remain poorly characterised. This study aimed to harness the authenticity and richness of naturally occurring online qualitative data to explore the clinical, organisational, and personal factors that shape women’s hysteroscopy experiences, offering vital insights for service improvement. The study found that five themes captured women’s specific hysteroscopy experiences: (1) Contingent Consent, (2) Unacknowledged Vulnerability, (3) Analgesia Roulette, (4) Gynaecological Pain Gaslighting, and (5) Gendered Pain Gap. These themes delineate a hysteroscopy pathway where consent is shaped by limited choices and misinformation, vulnerability is heightened by procedural exposure, pain relief is inconsistently applied, women's suffering is routinely dismissed, and gender biases reinforce unequal standards of care. This study identifies clinical blind-spots that contribute to perceptions of systemic neglect in women’s gynaecological health care, evidenced by inconsistent pain management, inadequate consent, and gendered biases in OPH. These findings present an opportunity to inform structural reforms that advance equitable, patient-centred gynaecological care and improve clinical accountability. Further reading on the hub: Painful hysteroscopy Community thread My experience of an outpatient hysteroscopy procedure Preventable negative hysteroscopy experience
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Community Post
Urinary Tract Infections
Katherine Church posted a topic in Digital health and care service provision
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I am looking for precision diagnostics in the UTI space. Either at home or at point of care. I am also looking for evidence of presentation at points of care for ITIs and any evidence of lived experience, impact and costs of current pathways. In particular in pharmacy first, peimary care -
News Article
One in 10 operations in England cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
About one in 10 operations in England are cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice or postponed, according to research. A study of elective surgery at 91 English NHS trusts found that 10% of operations were cancelled the day before the planned surgery date; while 9% were postponed when patients had their pre-op appointment. If the study’s findings were replicated nationally, that would equate to approximately 300,000 cancellations or postponements. Yet nearly 40% of cancellations could be avoided, the authors concluded. Researchers for the National Institute for Health and Care Research Central London patient safety research collaboration, NHS England, University College London and the Royal College of Anaesthetists examined planned surgery data over seven days in November 2024. They found that the most common causes of cancellations were for medical reasons, patients not attending, operating lists overrunning and emergency admissions. But in 37.3% of cases, had these issues been identified as little as three to five days earlier, the operation could either have gone ahead, or another patient could have been offered the surgery slot, the study calculated. The study, published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, also found that nearly two-thirds of operations postponed at the pre-op appointment were because patients needed further tests or specialist clinical review. The authors concluded that clinical pathways need overhauling, with more early screening, nimbler surgery scheduling and better communication. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 April 2026 -
Content ArticlePostponing or cancelling elective surgical procedures can adversely affect the patient experience, clinical outcomes, and operational efficiency. The Postponement and Cancellations in Elective Care (PACE2024) study assessed the incidence and causes of postponement at preoperative assessment and cancellation within 24 h of planned surgery across the NHS in UK. Data from 78 NHS trusts from a 7-day survey in 2024 show reduced cancellation rates (now 9.9%) and postponements (8.7%) with improved theatre efficiency (74.7% of lists reported as running efficiently) since the Super-SNAP1 study in 2022. Postponements were most commonly attributable to a need for further investigation, and cancellations were most frequently associated with acute medical conditions and list overruns. Because nearly half of postponements involved additional testing or consultations, and acute medical conditions were the main driver of short-notice cancellations, earlier optimisation and robust preoperative assessment to meet fit to proceed criteria are needed. Proactive management of acute medical conditions and patient-initiated reasons for cancellation, optimised theatre scheduling to reduce list overruns, and enhanced preassessment pathways to ensure preparation for surgery could reduce disruption and improve theatre utilisation, with positive impacts on patient experience, workforce, and resource utilisation.
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News ArticleDrugs aimed at slowing Alzheimer's disease progression "make no meaningful difference to patients" while raising the risk of brain swelling and bleeding, a new review has claimed. However, charities have swiftly challenged these findings, accusing experts of unfairly combining failed and successful drug trials. Researchers behind the review stated that the effects of these medicines on individuals with early-stage Alzheimer's and dementia were "either absent or consistently small". Edo Richard, a professor of neurology at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, noted his team observed "results from trials over the last two decades 'are not consistent'". Charities argue that the review's authors have attempted to "paint an entire class of drugs with the same brush", potentially undermining the benefits of certain treatments. Anti-amyloid medicines work by binding to and clearing protein deposits in the brains of those with Alzheimer's, a process intended to slow cognitive decline. The treatments were not approved for use on the NHS after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) deemed their benefits “too small” to justify the cost. The new Cochrane review looked at 17 studies involving 20,342 patients overall. The analysis found that the effects of these drugs on cognitive function and dementia severity after 18 months was “trivial”. According to Prof Richard, the differences made by the treatments were “far below the minimal effect that’s needed to be noticeable at all for patients and caregivers”. Dr Susan Kohlhaas, executive director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the charity regularly heard from families impacted by dementia who said that even a delay of several months in their loved one’s decline “could provide valuable, meaningful time” that “shouldn’t be minimised”. She said: “Crucially, this study is attempting to paint an entire class of drugs with the same brush even though we know different anti-amyloid treatments can act in different ways. “Anti-amyloid treatments will not be the whole answer to curing Alzheimer’s, and research is already moving towards a wider range of biological targets. “But it’s not accurate to dismiss their impact as ‘trivial’, especially when the analysis has clear constraints that limit what it can tell us.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2026
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Content ArticleArtificial intelligence (AI)-driven chatbots have been rapidly adopted across research, education, business, marketing and medicine. Most interactions, however, come from non-experts using chatbots like search engines, including for everyday health and medical queries. This study, published in BMJ Open, audited chatbot responses in health and medical fields prone to misinformation. Five popular chatbots were assessed: Gemini (Google), DeepSeek (High-Flyer), Meta AI (Meta), ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Grok (xAI). In February 2025, each chatbot was prompted with 10 questions from five categories: cancer, vaccines, stem cells, nutrition and athletic performance. The authors deployed an adversarial-like framework, using open- and closed-ended prompts designed to strain models toward misinformation or contraindicated advice. Two experts from each category rated responses as ‘non-problematic’, ‘somewhat problematic’ or ‘highly problematic’ using a coding matrix based on objective, predefined criteria. Citations were scored for accuracy and completeness, and each response was given a Flesch Reading Ease score. The study found that nearly half (49.6%) of responses were problematic: 30% somewhat problematic and 19.6% highly problematic. Response quality did not differ significantly among chatbots, but Grok generated significantly more highly problematic responses than would be expected under a random distribution. Performance was strongest in vaccines and cancer, and weakest in stem cells, athletic performance and nutrition. Chatbot outputs were consistently expressed with confidence and certainty; from 250 total questions, there were only two refusals to answer, both from Meta AI. Reference quality was poor, with a median completeness score of 40%. Chatbot hallucinations and fabricated citations precluded any chatbot from producing a fully accurate reference list. All readability scores were graded as ‘Difficult’, equivalent to college sophomore–senior level. The audited chatbots performed poorly when answering questions in misinformation-prone health and medical fields. Continued deployment without public education and oversight risks amplifying misinformation.
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News Article
USA: Taking Tylenol during pregnancy has no link to autism, new study finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Taking acetaminophen – known in the US by the brand name Tylenol – during pregnancy has no effect on later autism diagnoses, according to a sweeping new study from Denmark published on Monday. The Trump administration has targeted Tylenol use in pregnancy as a major cause of autism in children, which appears to have led to a drop in pregnant people taking the pain reliever. Health officials announced in September 2025 that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would initiate a label change for acetaminophen, warning of a potential link to autism. Trump cautioned several times against taking the pain reliever during pregnancy. “If you’re pregnant, don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said at a press conference at the time. “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t have your baby take Tylenol.” He said the medication was “not good” and taking Tylenol during pregnancy was associated with “a very increased risk of autism”. Through Denmark’s robust national healthcare system, researchers were able to track more than 1.5 million children born between 1997 and 2022 in the national health registry, including 31,098 children who were exposed to Tylenol in utero. Autism was diagnosed in 1.8% of children who were exposed to Tylenol and 3% of those who weren’t, according to the study, which was published in Jama Pediatrics. A similar 2024 study in Sweden found a marginal link that disappeared after taking siblings into account, suggesting that autism is strongly genetic, which has already been demonstrated in other studies. Tylenol is safe to take during pregnancy and can play a key role in relieving pain and bringing down fevers. Yet after the September announcement, Tylenol orders for pregnant women in emergency rooms dropped by 16% in the initial study period, according to a Lancet study published last month. Health officials’ “words are affecting behavior”, said Jeremy Faust, a co-author of that Lancet study, an emergency physician at Mass General Brigham and a health services researcher at Harvard Medical School. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 April 2026 -
Content ArticleIn hospitals, improvers and implementers use quality improvement science (QIS) and less frequently implementation research (IR) to improve healthcare and health outcomes. Narrowly defined quality improvement (QI) guided by QIS focuses on transforming systems of care to improve healthcare quality and delivery and IR focuses on developing approaches to close the gap between what is known (research findings) and what is practiced (by clinicians). However, QI regularly involves implementing evidence and IR consistently addresses organisational and setting-level factors. The disciplines share a common end goal, namely, to improve health outcomes, and work to understand and change the same actors in the same settings often encountering and addressing the same challenges. QIS has its origins in industry and IR in behavioural science and health services research. Despite overlap in purpose, the two sciences have evolved separately. Thought leaders in QIS and IR have argued the need for improved collaboration between the disciplines. The Veterans Health Administration’s Quality Enhancement Research Initiative has successfully employed QIS methods to implement evidence-based practices more rapidly into clinical practice, but similar formal collaborations between QIS and IR are not widespread in other health care systems. Acute care teams are well positioned to improve care delivery and implement the latest evidence. This paper provides an overview of QIS and IR; examine the key characteristics of QIS and IR, including strengths and limitations of each discipline; and present specific recommendations for integration and collaboration between the two approaches to improve the impact of QI and implementation efforts in the hospital setting.
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Content ArticleHospitalised patients in the US tended to have a lower chance of dying or being readmitted within 30 days when they were treated by female physicians rather than male clinicians, a recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine found. The difference in outcomes for patients examined by female vs male physicians translated into 1 fewer death per 417 hospitalizations, and 1 fewer readmission per 208 hospitalizations, according to the researchers. The data were based on about 776 900 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older who were treated by more than 42 100 clinicians.
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Content ArticleHealthcare systems are trying to reduce “low-value” work, which are tasks that waste time without improving patient outcomes. While low-value clinical treatments are identified through strong evidence, patient safety practices often originate informally and lack clear proof of benefit. Many persist because they provide emotional reassurance or a sense of protection for staff, making them harder to remove. A new article by researchers from the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber PSRC highlights that de-implementing low-value patient safety practices requires different approaches than reducing low-value clinical care, as their origins and meanings are more complex.
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EventuntilThere is an increasing use of technology in healthcare and patient safety, though the implementation of such technology has had varied success. Healthcare operates in complex open systems and cultural, social and organisational contexts. Sociotechnical theory considers that people and technology are dynamically, reciprocally and recursively related and the relationships between human agency, the social and technology are considered as interdependent. The implementation, adoption and use of technology is therefore seen as a contextually situated social practice. This session will have interactive elements and opportunities for discussion. It will look to introduce and provide an understanding of sociotechnical theory. We will seek to understand how sociotechnical theory can be used to illuminate technological adoption in complex systems and the implications for patient safety. We will reflect upon how sociotechnical theory might be useful for patient safety research. SafetyNet Patient Safety 101 sessions are intended for researchers who may not be experienced in patient safety and would like to know the basics on a range of Patient Safety topics or those who would like a refresher. Register
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EventuntilThe 8th Nordic Conference on Research in Patient Safety and Quality in Healthcare 2026 brings together experts, researchers, and professionals from across the Nordic-Baltic region to discuss how health and social care systems can adapt to change while ensuring safety, quality, and equity. Keynote speakers include leading voices in health policy, research, and digital transformation: Lasse Lehtonen (Kela), Liina-Kaisa Tynkkynen (Finnish institute for health and welfare), Anne Moen (University of Oslo), Josephine Ocloo (King’s College London), and Henrique Martins (Universidade da Beira Interior / ISCTE-IUL). The program features national and regional perspectives on client and patient safety, discussions on the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, and presentations on medication safety, rehospitalization, home treatment, and client safety in social services. The conference also explores key issues such as digital health literacy, citizen engagement, educational innovations, and the impact of inequity in client and patient safety. Together, these sessions aim to strengthen collaboration, share evidence-based practices, and inspire progress toward safer and more effective health and social care across the Nordic-Baltic region. The conference also aims to foster dialogue between health and social care quality and safety and warmly welcomes social care experts, researchers, and practitioners to join the conference. Register
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Content ArticleDouble-checking of medication administration is a safety practice used in hospitals around the world. Independence is recommended as the key to effectiveness. Independent double-checking (IDC) requires each nurse to separately check the five rights (eg, right drug, dose). There is no empirical evidence that IDC is more effective in error detection than a single-nurse check. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of IDC versus single-checking in detecting medication errors during administration, assess the time required and explore factors influencing performance, including nurse experience and social dynamics. It found that IDC improved error detection for experienced nurses, but not for early career nurses. Given its inconsistent benefits, resource demands and susceptibility to social loafing (defined as reduced individual performance when working in pairs), IDC may be unsuitable as a universal safety strategy. Strengthening single-checking competence and supporting clinical judgement may offer a more effective, scalable approach to improving medication safety.
