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Patient Safety, Quality Improvement, & Complex Systems

Provides resources for students, clinicians, researchers, & administrators on patient safety, quality improvement, & complex healthcare systems.

Announcement re: Federal Govt Data

U.S. government sites are modifying some data, and some datasets may not be accessible on the site. Look for a notice like this on visible web pages.

To search for websites/datasets that appear to be inaccessible, check the resources on the individual tabs.

Finding Government Information during the 2025 Administration Transitionhttps://libguides.umn.edu/govpubs/admin  A broad overview from librarians at the University o Minnesota Library. For health sciences data, see especially the Data & Website Rescue Efforts, Existing Alternative Data Sources, & topic pages for more specific information.

From KFF:  A Look at Federal Health Data Taken Offline: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/a-look-at-federal-health-data-taken-offline/

To search across sites, from Boston University: https://www.FindLostData.org

The Data Rescue Project's Data Rescue Tracker https://www.datarescueproject.org/data-rescue-tracker/

Internet Archivehttps://web.archive.org/  Search by URL, if you have it, or by dataset or organization name, then click on the most recent date on the calendar of results. Data is from the end of administration project that they produce every 4 years (in this case, 28 Jan 2025).

Policy Map:  https://www.policymap.com/blog/purged-federal-agency-data-available   Including data from CDC PLACES (Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates), the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), the Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), & others.

ICPSR: is saving CDC data  https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/ICPSR/index.html

Preserving Public U.S. Federal Data: https://lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01/30/preserving-public-u-s-federal-data/ (data not currently available until spring)

Welcome!

Welcome to the research guide for Patient Safety. Here you'll find resources and information that will help you with your research. Click on the tabs on this page to uncover detailed lists of resources to help answer your questions.  Each tab leads you to the best sources for finding statistical data, journal articles, citation analysis, and more.

If you've been searching and can't find what you're looking for, please contact me. I can:

  • Help with your literature searches, including advanced techniques for database searching
  • Orient you to the library resources available through UM
  • Teach you citation management tools (EndNote, etc.) that can save you time formatting your citations and bibliography

For help in using the library, watch these videos:

 

Infographic of Diagnositic Safety

Measure Dx: A Resource To Identify, Analyze, and Learn From Diagnostic Safety Events.

It includes 4 sections that outline a series of steps to begin and sustain measurement of diagnostic safety.

  • Part I outlines ways to engage people in the organization to ensure adequate resources to implement measurement and learning activities.
  • Part II contains a self-assessment checklist to gauge readiness for implementation, as well as guidance for choosing a measurement strategy that fits with your organization's resources.
  • Part III describes four different strategies (systematic approaches to measurement) based on different types of data sources.
  • Part IV provides recommendations for systematically reviewing and analyzing case data and translating findings into useful insights for learning and improvement.

 

Website

Studying complexity in health services research: desperately seeking an overdue paradigm shift. 

Trisha Greenhalgh and Chrysanthi Papoutsi, BMC Medicine 2018; 16:95

Abstract

Complexity is much talked about but sub-optimally studied in health services research. Although the significance of the complex system as an analytic lens is increasingly recognised, many researchers are still using methods that assume a closed system in which predictive studies in general, and controlled experiments in particular, are possible and preferred. We argue that in open systems characterised by dynamically changing inter-relationships and tensions, conventional research designs predicated on linearity and predictability must be augmented by the study of how we can best deal with uncertainty, unpredictability and emergent causality. . . . Each of the initial five papers in this collection illustrates, in different ways, the value of theoretically grounded, methodologically pluralistic, flexible and adaptive study designs. We propose an agenda for future research and invite researchers to contribute to this on-going series.

Studying Complexity in Health Services Research

Resources

Michigan Medicine has been a national leader in patient safety for years.  Below are some links to important patient safety resources from Michigan Medicine and the Ann Arbor VA Hospital.

Last Updated: Feb 27, 2025 5:16 PM
Subjects: Health Sciences