ECRI, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of care across all healthcare settings, recently released its report on Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2020. Diagnostic errors and maternal health were in the top two spots. The annual report helps organizations identify looming patient safety challenges across the continuum of care and includes suggestions and resources for addressing them. “Unsafe healthcare delivery harms millions of patients,” says Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer of ECRI. “Our annual patient safety report provides a roadmap to help healthcare leaders know what goes wrong and how to prevent harm.” ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns relies on the analysis of more than 3.2 million patient safety events in its patient safety organization reporting program, as well as the judgment and experience of its interdisciplinary patient safety and medication safety experts. The list identifies areas that are high priorities for a variety of reasons, 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. Other entries in the Top 10 included: Early Recognition of Behavioral Health Needs. Stigmatization, fear, and inadequate resources can lead to negative outcomes when working with behavioral health patients. 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. Patient Matching in the EHR. Organizations should consistently use standard patient identifier conventions, attributes, and formats in all patient encounters. To read more, visit ECRI.
