IHI Skilled Nursing Facility Trigger Tool for Measuring Adverse Events.
Prior research has shown that safety culture is relatively poor among frontline workers in skilled nursing facilities. Trigger tools can help to identify opportunities for patient harm and measure adverse events that occur over time. This toolkit outlines steps to use a trigger tool in skilled nursing facilities, reviews types of events that take place in this setting, and discusses how to analyze trigger tool data to inform improvement work. A past WebM&M commentary discusses challenges to safety in long-term care.