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������ƵStats: Cost Barriers to Care Access

While 8.8 percent of people reported that cost was a barrier to getting needed medical care in 2019, 14.3 percent reported the same issue as a reason they were unable to get or delayed getting needed dental care. (Source: ������Ƶ2022 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report [PDF, 15.5 MB].)

Today's Headlines:

• ������ƵViews Blog: We Must Not Underestimate the Impacts of Gun Violence on Healthcare Workers.
• Use of Patient Portals May Boost Depression Screening Rates.
• ������ƵGrantee Spearheads Health Innovation Technology Innovation To Improve Patient Outcomes.
• Healthcare Professionals Invited To Test ������’s Updated TeamSTEPPS Curriculum.
• Older Opioid Patients Experience More Adverse Events After Injury.
• Highlights From ������’s Patient Safety Network.
• Available Now: 2022 Updated Results on Workplace Safety Culture in Hospitals.
• ������Ƶin the Professional Literature.

������ƵViews Blog: We Must Not Underestimate the Impacts of Gun Violence on Healthcare Workers

The need to more actively support healthcare workers who care for victims of gun violence is the subject of a new blog post by Director Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., M.H.S.A. More than 615 mass shootings have been recorded in the United States this year. Rarely, Dr. Valdez writes, has the burden of grief among the healthcare workforce been adequately recognized following these tragedies; too often we may assume healthcare workers are hardened to such events, given the daily trauma they experience in their work. But we owe it to each other to make our grief known and to speak out about this unacceptable trend of violence. ������Ƶwill continue to support the safety and well-being of healthcare workers through its research and tools to address burnout, as well as its participation in The National Action Alliance to Advance Patient Safety. Access the blog post. To receive all blog posts, and select “������ƵViews Blog.”

Use of Patient Portals May Boost Depression Screening Rates

People with moderate-to-severe depression may be more willing to engage with health systems through an online portal than by attending clinic visits, according to an AHRQ-funded study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The authors studied data for 1,037 adults due for depression screening at an urban internal medicine clinic to determine whether a portal-based, population health approach could increase depression screening rates compared to the usual care. They found that the screening rate for patients invited to access an online portal was higher than for patients receiving the usual care (43 percent vs. 33 percent). However, there were no statistically significant differences in screening rates between the two groups for patients aged 65 and older, African American patients, Asian patients, and patients with public insurance. Identification of moderate-to-severe depression increased 2.5-fold for patients using the portal compared with visit-based screening. Access the .

������ƵGrantee Spearheads Health Innovation Technology Innovation To Improve Patient Outcomes

Learn more about the work of AHRQ-funded researcher David Dorr, M.D., chief research information officer and vice chair of clinical informatics at Oregon Health & Science University. His research focuses on creating patient-centered health information technology innovations. It has included application of the Collaboration-Oriented Approach for Controlling High Blood Pressure (COACH), which combines hypertension guidelines and protocols with patient data to help improve diagnosis and outcomes for patients with multiple chronic conditions. Access Dr. Dorr’s profile and profiles of other ������Ƶgrantees. 

Healthcare Professionals Invited To Test ������’s Updated TeamSTEPPS Curriculum

������Ƶis seeking participants to test a new version of TeamSTEPPS, an evidence-based training curriculum developed to improve teamwork and protect the safety of patients throughout the healthcare system. The new comprehensive TeamSTEPPS curriculum is designed to enhance users’ experience, improve the program’s effectiveness, emphasize professionalism and enhance the involvement of patient and family caregivers. The one-day pilot test of the updated training session will occur at ������Ƶin Rockville, MD, on Jan. 13, 2023, and be provided at no cost to participants. A limited number of trainees will be invited to participate virtually. Contact Sharon_Pollack@abtassoc.com for additional information.

Older Opioid Patients Experience More Adverse Events After Injury

Chronic non-cancer pain Medicare patients with new opioid prescriptions who experience an injury—such as a fall or traumatic brain injury—have a 1.4 times greater risk of future opioid-related adverse events than those patients who did not experience an injury. According to an in PLOS Medicine, the risk was highest in the 30 days before an adverse event. The findings indicated that identifying injuries that emerge after opioid initiation may assist in the early detection of older patients at high risk for adverse events such as overdoses.

Highlights From ������’s Patient Safety Network

������’s highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

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Review additional new publications in PSNet’s or access recent in ������’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

Available Now: 2022 Updated Results on Workplace Safety Culture in Hospitals

������’s 2022 Updated Surveys on Patient Safety Culture™ (SOPS) Hospital Workplace Safety Supplemental Item Set provides results from 40 participating hospitals and more than 11,000 healthcare providers and staff that administered the ������ƵWorkplace Safety Supplemental Item Set and submitted data to the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture Database. The report indicates that an average of 34 percent of healthcare providers and staff experience symptoms of work stress/burnout. The SOPS Workplace Safety Supplemental Item Set for hospitals was designed for use with the core SOPS Hospital Survey to help hospitals assess the extent to which their organization’s culture supports workplace safety for providers and staff.

������Ƶin the Professional Literature

Improving quality and safety for patients after hospital discharge: primary care as the lead integrator in postdischarge care transitions. Bourgoin A, Balaban R, Hochman M, et al. J Ambul Care Manage 2022 Oct-Dec;45(4):310-20. Access the on PubMed®.

Physician organizations' use of behavioral nudges to influence physician behavior. Damberg CL, Tom A, Reid RO. Am J Manag Care 2022 Sep;28(9):473-6. Access the on PubMed®.

Pragmatic clinical trial of population health, portal-based depression screening: the PORTAL-Depression study. Franco MI, Staab EM, Zhu M, et al. J Gen Intern Med Epub 2022 Sep 20. Access the on PubMed®.

Toward safer opioid prescribing in HIV care (TOWER): a mixed-methods, cluster-randomized trial. Cedillo G, George MC, Deshpande R, et al. Addict Sci Clin Pract 2022 May 16;17(1):28. Access the on PubMed®.

A statewide collaborative quality initiative to improve antibiotic duration and outcomes in patients hospitalized with uncomplicated community-acquired pneumonia. Vaughn VM, Gandhi TN, Hofer TP, et al. Clin Infect Dis 2022 Aug 31;75(3):460-7. Access the on PubMed®.

Management and prevention of Staphylococcus aureus infections in children. Kalu IC, Kao CM, Fritz SA. Infect Dis Clin North Am 2022 Mar;36(1):73-100. Access the on PubMed®.

Clin-Star corner: what is new at the interface of geriatrics and nephrology? Nair D, Hall RK. J Am Geriatr Soc 2022 Aug;70(8):2219-24. Epub 2022 Jul 9. Access the on PubMed®.

Coincidence analysis: a novel approach to modeling nurses' workplace experience. Womack DM, Miech EJ, Fox NJ, et al. Appl Clin Inform 2022 Aug;13(4):794-802. Epub 2022 Aug 31. Access the on PubMed®.