This monthly newsletter keeps you up to date about what’s happening at the Patient Safety Authority, Pennsylvania facilities, and in healthcare today. In this edition we share information, tools, and resources everyone can use to help keep patients safe.
Help, I Need Some… Information!
The Patient Safety Authority (PSA) offers many resources for Pennsylvania healthcare facilities. If you need patient safety–related information, we likely have a solution.
Do you offer self-paced education programs on demand?
Yes! Access PSA courses through our online learning platform. Topics include event reporting, long-term care, infection prevention, and more! Registration is required. In addition, all our webinars are recorded and hosted on the PSA YouTube channel, which can be accessed by anyone at any time. Here are some recent series:
- Medication Safety Q&A
- Long-Term Care Emergency Preparedness
- Outside the Box Webinar Series
- Antibiotic Stewardship Webinar Series
You can earn Pennsylvania nursing continuing education credits upon completion of most courses.
Are there any resources to orient frontline staff to reporting requirements?
Yes! Our introductory course is perfect for new employees and only takes about five minutes: Patient Safety Reporting Requirements for Pennsylvania’s Frontline Healthcare Teams. We also offer more detailed information in our Navigating Event Reporting course.
What about specific examples of what to report?
PSA has several resources about event reporting.
The Final Guidance for Acute Healthcare Facility Determinations of Reporting Requirements Under the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (MCARE) Act aids acute healthcare facilities in making determinations about whether specific occurrences meet the statutory definitions of a serious event, incident, or infrastructure failure, as defined in section 302 of the MCARE Act (40 P. S.
§ 1303.302).
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Patient Safety Essentials in Pennsylvania is an annual four-part webinar series for patient safety professionals that reviews basic Pennsylvania legislative components.
- Learning the Basics of Patient Safety in Pennsylvania (PSO Basics) is an online learning course similar to Patient Safety Essentials.
- The Reporting Decision Tree is a step-by-step algorithm to determine which event type is most appropriate to use when submitting an event report.
- The Event Reporting Examples are case studies based on the Reporting Decision Tree that offer simple rationale for reporting events a certain way.
- The interactive Reporting Decision Tree answers questions specific to your event and suggests which event type to use.
Buy-in from frontline staff is so important. Do you have real-world examples of reported events that effected widescale change?
- Changemakers: Stories That Made a Difference shares actual reported events that inspired staff to make changes that improved patient care and safety.
- Our I AM Patient Safety awards celebrate commitment to patient safety. Read about previous winners and consider submitting your facility’s achievements during the nomination period.
How can I network with other patient safety officers in the state?
PSA has resumed in-person educational offerings—a great way to build relationships with other patient safety professionals. Visit our Training and Events page or talk to your patient safety advisor for more information.
Competing priorities create resource challenges for project development and implementation. Do you have toolkits for specific issues?
Explore our index of patient safety topics, where you will find a variety of resources for use in your facility. Tools may be available to assist with gap analyses, observations, data collection, action planning, communication, patient education (safety tips for patients), and more.
What if I have other questions or need additional support?
We have a team of patient safety and infection prevention advisors with decades of collective experience. They assist Pennsylvania healthcare facilities with event reporting, data analysis, team building education and training, leadership engagement, observations related to prevention of wrong-site surgeries, event reviews, general consultation, and more.
Better Communication Translates to Better Care
Do you consider yourself a good communicator? Would it surprise you to know that some of your patients probably haven’t fully understood their diagnosis or your instructions?
Don’t take it personally— healthcare can be confusing for patients. Think about it: During a healthcare encounter, they aren’t feeling well and are under a lot of stress, and it’s hard for anyone to think clearly in those circumstances. For some patients, English isn’t their first language, and even if it is, they still may not be familiar with medical jargon that we assume “everyone knows.”
You might be wondering,
If they don’t understand something, why don’t they say so? Patients may be too embarrassed to ask a question, or they plan to ask someone else or lookup the information later. Or they may not know what questions to ask, or how to ask them.
It goes both ways. You may not understand everything your patient says, or they may not share enough to help you make a diagnosis.
Sometimes it may seem like they aren’t even interested in what you’re telling them.
Since both patients and healthcare providers often have trouble understanding one another, the Patient Safety Authority spoke to people on both sides to develop a translation tool for everyone: The Patient’s Companion, a handbook to improve communication by empowering and engaging patients more in their care. It explains roles on the care team (including the patients themselves!), guides patients in sharing information to help make a diagnosis, encourages them and their loved ones to speak up and ask questions during their visit, and provides advice and tips on many other topics.
This book was also designed with healthcare workers in mind, highlighting how you might approach patients differently to help them help you. Consider making or renewing the following promises to your patients:
- To remember they are sick and may be scared
- To listen to them and make them feel heard
- To answer whatever questions they have
- To not use “medical speak” whenever you can
- To remember they are the expert about their body and the person with the most information about them
+Topics of specific interest to patients include diagnosis, chronic conditions, sepsis, medical records, common fears, and more. For example, the section “Social Drivers of Health” helps patients understand the importance of sharing personal information, such as food insecurity, housing security, and transportation—things that might never cross their minds to tell a healthcare provider or that they’re reluctant to mention.
“Social drivers of health” are things that can affect your health but have nothing to do with your medical history,
such as whether you have access to a computer or have trouble getting to or from the doctor.
You might feel uncomfortable sharing certain things with your care team, but remember:
They’re here to help you! And the more information they have, the easier it is for them to do that.
The Patient’s Companion is available as a free download for desktop and mobile at PatientSafety.pa.gov/Handbook in English and Spanish, with additional languages to come. Please contact the PSA at patientsafetyauthority@pa.gov if you would like to customize a version for your office or facility.
