ECRI unveils inaugural list of top 10 patient safety concerns
The ECRI Institute, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit dedicated to improving the safety, quality and cost-effectiveness of patient care, released a report outlining its top 10 patient safety concerns.
The list reflects an analysis by the ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) of documented events since 2009.
Poor care coordination, drug shortages, mislabeled specimens, falls while toileting and foreign objects unintentionally retained after surgery, childbirth or other interventional procedures all made the list. The calling out of specific safety concerns is intended to help organizations identify priorities and aid them in creating corrective action plans, according to the institute.
The ECRI Institute PSO’s 10 top patient safety concerns are:
- Data integrity failures within health IT systems
- Poor care coordination with patient’s next level of care
- Test results reporting errors
- Drug shortages
- Failure to adequately manage behavioral health patients in acute care settings
- Mislabeled specimens
- Retained devices and unretrieved fragments
- Patient falls while toileting
- Inadequate monitoring for respiratory depression in patients taking opioids
- Inadequate reprocessing of endoscopes and surgical instruments
“In a time of competing priorities and limited resources in healthcare, we encourage facilities to use the list as a starting point for patient safety discussions and for setting their patient safety priorities,” said Karen P. Zimmer, MD, MPH, medical director of ECRI Institute’s patient safety, risk and quality group and of ECRI Institute PSO, in a statement.
To access the report and list, go here.