Tools To Improve Diagnostic Safety

Guide to Patient and Family Engagement: This guide encourages hospital patients and family members to be involved in their care.

Improving Your Laboratory Testing Process A Step-by-Step Guide for Rapid-Cycle Patient Safety and Quality Improvement : The tools in this step-by-step guide can increase the reliability of the testing process in your office by helping you examine how tests are managed.

Questions Are the Answer: Asking questions about a diagnosis or other aspects of care is a step that patients can take to make care safer. These AHRQ resources demonstrate how asking questions can improve care with tips on how to communicate with clinicians.

The Reducing Diagnostic Errors in Primary Care Pediatrics Toolkit aims to assist primary care practice teams with a systematic approach to reduce diagnostic errors among children in three important areas: elevated blood pressure, adolescent depression, and actionable pediatric diagnostic tests. This toolkit walks teams through the measurement, screening, recognition, diagnosis, follow-up, and reduction of diagnostic errors in these areas. It is based on clinical evidence, best practices, and a compilation of resources from the project, which involved over 100 primary care physicians and their care teams working across the United States to improve care for children.

Resources to Facilitate Communication Between Patients and Clinicians: From the IOM report, "Improving Diagnosis in Health Care," this toolkit includes a checklist and other resources to help patients understand what they can to do prevent diagnostic error.

TeamSTEPPS^®: This training curriculum helps clinical teams improve communication and coordination, making patient care safer.