In honor of Patient Safety Awareness Week, this post will highlight some openly-available information resources that may be helpful to both health professionals and to members of the general public who are interested in learning more about patient safety.

MedlinePlus – Patient Safety –
https://medlineplus.gov/patientsafety.html
This web resource provides patients with information and resources (in both English and Spanish) that can help them take a more active role in the prevention of medical errors during their healthcare. “MedlinePlus is the National Institutes of Health’s Web site for patients and their families and friends. Produced by the National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest medical library, it brings you information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in language you can understand. MedlinePlus offers reliable, up-to-date health information, anytime, anywhere, for free.”

Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS) Database –
https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/patientsafetyculture/hospital/index.html
Since 2004, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has been administering a “staff survey designed to help hospitals assess the culture of safety in their institutions“ to hundreds of participating hospitals. The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture Database “comprises voluntarily submitted data from U.S. hospitals that administered the survey”.

Hospital User Comparative Database Reports – https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/patientsafetyculture/hospital/hosp-reports.html
The AHRQ also uses the aforementioned survey data to produce a resource called the Comparative Database Reports that serves as the “central repository for survey data from hospitals that have administered the AHRQ patient safety culture survey instrument” so that one hospital can compare their responses to the results of other hospitals.

MEDLINE’s “Patient Safety” Medical Subject Heading [Mesh] – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/68061214
Since 2012, journal articles indexed in the MEDLINE portion of the PubMed database that discuss “efforts to reduce risk, to address and reduce incidents and accidents that may negatively impact healthcare consumers” have been assigned the “Patient Safety”[Mesh] medical subject heading. Add this Mesh term to PubMed’s search builder to view over 11,000 citations on this topic.

If you have questions about any of these resources, feel free to contact us!

Happy Patient Safety Awareness Week!