Patient Safety

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Racism and Patient Safety, Abortion After Dobbs, Homelessness: RAND Weekly Recap

This week, we discuss how racism impacts patient safety; the effects of overturning Roe v. Wade; trauma in the U.S. Intelligence Community; addressing homelessness in L.A.; disputes in the South China Sea; and how space mirrors might help address climate change.

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The Impact of Racism on Patient Safety

Minoritized patients are at high risk of experiencing what the medical field calls “patient safety events.” But the way the U.S. health care system tracks patient safety too often makes their experiences invisible. Better reporting would allow hospitals and other providers to identify disparities in care, and to address them.

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Politicized Topics in School, the War in Ukraine, Post-Quantum Cryptography: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the intrusion of politicized topics in America's schools, where the war in Ukraine may be headed, post-quantum cryptography, and more.

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Responsible e-Prescribing Needs e-Discontinuation

Implementation of electronic prescribing has been a big success in health information technology. But most e-prescribing systems don't allow electronic cancellation of orders. Adding this feature could help reduce medication errors.

Shira H. Fischer @ShiraFischer, Adam J. Rose

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On Vaccines, Trump Should Rely on Science

Research has proven that vaccines are extremely safe and effective. The public health implications of questioning this are serious. America should take every opportunity to protect kids by vaccinating them against every vaccine-preventable disease.

Courtney A. Gidengil @c_gidengil, Laura J. Faherty @LauraFahertyMD

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Relationships Between Physician Professional Satisfaction and Patient Safety

Health system leaders should view regular and detailed assessment of physician professional satisfaction as an invaluable early warning system for potential threats to quality and safety. But simply surveying doctors on their overall levels of job satisfaction isn't enough.

Mark W. Friedberg

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More Research Is Needed on Artificial Joints and Patients Can Play a Key Role

Safety problems with artificial knees and hips, including product recalls, highlight the need for more patient-centered research. RAND has partnered with CreakyJoints in a project intended to train a group of patients to get involved in research on this topic.

Thomas W. Concannon @tconcannon, Ben Nowell

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Scoring the Surgeon Scorecard

There is no tradeoff between recognizing the serious methodological problems in the ProPublica Surgeon Scorecard, improving the Scorecard, and encouraging providers to release their own data. All three can and should be done simultaneously.

Mark W. Friedberg

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Putting Patients First Can Result in Better Care Overall

Better patient care experiences are associated with higher levels of adherence to recommended prevention and treatment processes, better clinical outcomes, better patient safety within hospitals, and less health care utilization.

Rebecca Anhang Price, Marc N. Elliott, et al.

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Small Ideas for Saving Big Health Care Dollars (No. 11-14)

Focusing on smaller, more focused approaches can identify less controversial opportunities for modest health care savings.

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Small Ideas for Saving Big Health Care Dollars (No. 8-10)

Focusing on smaller, more focused approaches can identify less controversial opportunities for modest health care savings.

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Generation Ex

The problem is that on any given day, disaster preparedness takes a back seat to ongoing operations. The tyranny of the urgent prevents hospital administrators from making investments in preparedness, writes Art Kellermann.

Arthur L. Kellermann

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Could Liability Concerns Derail Clinical Decision Support?

Computerized clinical decision support (CDS) systems have been developed to enhance physician decisionmaking and reduce the incidence of avoidable medical errors. Drug-drug interaction warnings are a mainstay of CDS systems, but they give rise to a fundamental problem that limits the utility of the systems to date.

M. Susan Ridgely, Michael D. Greenberg

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Multiple Patient Safety Events in Hospitals

A patient safety event is any event or action that could lead to a worse outcome for a patient, from bedsores to post-operative respiratory failure.

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Using Patient Surveys to Rate Hospitals

Hospitals that perform better on the survey tend to do better on clinical measures, have fewer readmissions within 30 days and have lower risk-adjusted mortality, write Marc Elliott and Alan Zaslavsky.

Marc N. Elliott, Alan M. Zaslavsky

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Clinical Decision Support and Malpractice Risk

From the standpoint of policy makers, the basic challenge is to ensure that liability concerns do not derail the clinical value of new CDS technology, write Michael Greenberg and M. Susan Ridgely.

Michael D. Greenberg, M. Susan Ridgely

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Possible Outcomes of Comparative Effectiveness Research

Since the government is using taxpayer dollars to fund the comparative effectiveness initiative, it would be appropriate to have an organizing principle to guide the selection of which aspects of medical care to examine, writes Robert Brook.

Robert H. Brook