Table 1 Consensus-based priorities for patient safety research in emergency medicine

I

Methods to identify patient safety issues

  Developing or evaluating methods to identify and understand adverse events among ED patients

  Developing or evaluating methods identify and understand problems in ED care that lead to subsequent unplanned health-care utilization

  Developing or evaluating methods to identify and understand near misses

  Developing or evaluating methods to identify and understand diagnostic errors in emergency medicine

  Developing or evaluating methods to learn from patient safety events*

II

Understanding human and environmental factors related to patient safety

  Completing foundational work to understand how people work in the challenging, unforgiving environment of the ED (e.g., understanding how individuals working in teams sense problems and formulate plans to resolve them; understanding how individuals working in teams recognize and negotiate goal conflict; and understanding how people adapt to the unexpected (how can we better support their ability to anticipate, monitor, respond, and learn)

  Understanding how system factors (e.g., provider characteristics, technologies, and physical environment, crowding) influence patient safety events in the ED

  Understanding the influence of coordination/transition issues across the continuum of patient care (e.g., handover, transfers between hospitals, and transfers between units) on patient safety events

  Understanding the most important precursor events and unsafe situations that lead to adverse events

III

Patient perspective

  Exploring the role of patients and families in detecting, reporting, and preventing patient safety events*

IV

Interventions to promote patient safety

  Evaluating the impact of feedback and reporting to providers (e.g., patient outcome feedback, performance reviews, M and M rounds) on patient safety events

  Evaluating the impact of simulation on patient safety events*

  Evaluating the impact of cognitive support interventions on patient safety events*

  Developing and evaluating interventions to improve diagnostic accuracy

  Developing and evaluating interventions to address coordination/transition issues across the continuum of patient care (e.g., handover, transfers between hospitals, and transfers between units)