Introduction

This guide is a joint effort of the Health Sciences Library and the Performance Improvement and Patient Safety Department at UNC Health Care. It includes news, e-journals, e-books, guidelines, tools, and links to organizations in support of patient safety and quality improvement.

These links provide an introduction to topics in Health Care Quality and Safety:

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) - Patient Safety Primers
"Each primer defines a topic, offers background information on its epidemiology and context, and highlights relevant content from both AHRQ PSNet and AHRQ WebM&M."
American Hospital Association (AHA) - Quality and Patient Safety
News, updates on AHA policy and advocacy, and resources available from many different AHA initiatives addressing improvement in quality and patient safety.
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) – Knowledge Center
"Offers tools, change ideas, measures to guide improvement, IHI white papers, audio and video, improvement stories, and more."
Joint Commission - National Patient Safety Goals
2013 National Patient Safety Goals are now available.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - Healthcare-associated Infections
Incidence and economic cost; diseases and organisms; types of infections; monitoring infections; prevention and research.