10 Resources for Patient Safety

Building on your new skills as an empowered patient, today's post provides links to some of the excellent resources from leading health care organizations. 

1. Patient Safety Awareness Week sponsored by the National Patient Safety Foundation

Patient Safety Awareness Week is coming up this March 8^th to the 14^th. Watch for the latest educational resources and awareness campaigns for 2020.  Don't forget to watch the hashtag #PSAW

2. Ask Me 3 from the National Patient Safety Foundation

"Ask Me 3 is a patient education program designed to improve communication between patients and health care providers, encourage patients to become active members of their health care team, and promote improved health outcomes. The program encourages patients to ask their health care providers three questions: 1. What is my main problem? 2. What do I need to do? 3. Why is it important for me to do this?"

3. Patient Safety Videos from the National Patient Safety Foundation

"With more than 150 titles, the Open School video library offers quick instruction on a wide range of health care improvement topics. Every video comes with discussion questions, learning objectives, and a facilitator guide so you can deepen the learning in a group setting.​​​"

4. Patient Safety Glossary from the Center for Patient Safety

This list is also available as a PDF, and gives terms and definitions to experiences and scenarios a patient may encounter.

5. Tall Man Letters from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices

A recommended lettering practice to help distinguish between look-alike drug names that can be easily confused by both healthcare workers and patients alike. This suggestion represents drugs such as acetazolamide and acetohexamide as acetaZOLAMIDE and acetaHEXAMIDE to avoid dangerous mistakes.

6. PSNet from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

The Patient Safety Network is a weekly list of annotated links to patient safety literature, and other topics.

7. Patient Safety Primers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

A collection of informative sites dealing with topics such as adverse events after hospital discharge and detection of safety hazards. From a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

8. Patient Safety Portal from the America Society for Healthcare Risk Management

A collection of " patient safety tips and highlighted 10 Core Topics developed to assist healthcare professionals in reducing serious safety events." From a membership group division of the American Hospital Association.

9. Health.mil from the Military Health System

Specific tips for patients and workers in the military health system created by the defense Health Agency.

10.  Leadership Blog from The Joint Commission

An informative blog about patient safety from one of the champions of patient safety, The Joint Commission. This blog adds an interactive element to their general web resources.

We hope you explore these excellent resources, including our previous posts about being an empowered patient!