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Background: Hospice provides a full range of services for patients near the end of life, often in the patient's own home. There are no published studies that describe patient safety incidents in home hospice care. Objective: The study objective was to explore the types and characteristics of patient safety incidents in home hospice care from the experiences of hospice interdisciplinary team members. Methods: The study design is qualitative and descriptive. From a convenience sample of 17 hospices in 13 states we identified 62 participants including hospice nurses, physicians, social workers, chaplains, and home health aides. We interviewed a separate sample of 19 experienced hospice leaders to assess the credibility of primary results. Semistructured telephone interviews were recorded and transcribed. Four researchers used an editing technique to identify common themes from the interviews. Results: Major themes suggested a definition of patient safety in home hospice that includes concern for unnecessary harm to family caregivers or unnecessary disruption of the natural dying process. The most commonly described categories of patient harm were injuries from falls and inadequate control of symptoms. The most commonly cited contributing factors were related to patients, family caregivers, or the home setting. Few participants recalled incidents or harm related to medical errors by hospice team members. Conclusions: This is the first study to describe patient safety incidents from the experiences of hospice interdisciplinary team members. Compared with patient safety studies from other health care settings, participants recalled few incidents related to errors in evaluation, treatment, or communication by the hospice team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PURPOSE The clinician-colleague relationship is a cornerstone of relationship-centered care (RCC); in small family medicine offices, the clinician-medical assistant (MA) relationship is especially important. We sought to better understand the relationship between MA roles and the clinician-MA relationship within the RCC framework. METHODS We conducted an ethnographic study of 5 small family medicine offices (having <5 clinicians) in the Cincinnati Area Research and Improvement Group (CARInG) Network using interviews, surveys, and observations. We interviewed 19 MAs and supervisors and 11 clinicians (9 family physicians and 2 nurse practitioners) and observed 15 MAs in practice. Qualitative analysis used the editing style. RESULTS MAs' roles in small family medicine offices were determined by MA career motivations and clinician-MA relationships. MA career motivations comprised interest in health care, easy training/workload, and customer service orientation. Clinician-MA relationships were influenced by how MAs and clinicians respond to their perceptions of MA clinical competence (illustrated predominantly by comparing MAs with nurses) and organizational structure. We propose a model, trust and verify, to describe the structure of the clinician-MA relationship. This model is informed by clinicians' roles in hiring and managing MAs and the social familiarity of MAs and clinicians. Within the RCC framework, these findings can be seen as previously undefined constraints and freedoms in what is known as the Complex Responsive Process of Relating between clinicians and MAs. CONCLUSIONS Improved understanding of clinician-MA relationships will allow a better appreciation of how clinicians and MAs function in family medicine teams. Our findings may assist small offices undergoing practice transformation and guide future research to improve the education, training, and use of MAs in the family medicine setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]