Diagnostic errors and maternal health issues are the top two patient safety concerns for healthcare organizations in 2020, as ranked by patient safety organization ECRI Institute.
The institute releases an annual list of top 10 patient safety concerns for healthcare organizations. This year's list is based on analysis of more than 3.2 million patient safety events recorded via the institute's reporting program.
"This 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," the institute stated in a news release.
The list:
1. Missed and delayed diagnoses.
2. Maternal health across the continuum.
3. Early recognition of behavioral health needs.
4. Responding to and learning from device problems.
5. Device cleaning, disinfection and sterilization.
6. Standardizing safety across the system.
7. Patient matching in the EHR.
8. Antimicrobial stewardship.
9. Overrides of automated dispensing cabinets (that is, overrides to remove medications from a computerized drug storage device before pharmacists have reviewed and approved the move.)
10. Fragmentation across care settings.
To download a copy of the report, click here.