Patient protection has become one of the key elements of the quality of health care systems in Saudi Arabia. Medical errors that threaten patient safety are mediated by several factors including system risk factors. Hence, we used a self-structured questionnaire to assess and rank the system factors according to the perceptions of nurses working in the hospitals of the ministry of health in Hail, KSA. Eight out of twelve factors tested were perceived as threatening factors of the patient safety that are; ‘Shortage of medical staff’, ‘Poor design of the hospital structure’, ‘Long working hours’, ‘Overcrowding of patients’, ‘Poor coordination between hospital departments, ‘Punitive and blaming environment, ‘Lack of clinical practice standards’ and, ‘Poor financial incentives’. Thus, considering the negative impact of the identified threatening system factors in this study on patient safety, urgent planning and managing appropriate corrective actions should be designed to improve patient safety issues.

Despite the accelerated emerging of vaccines, development against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) drugs discovery is still in demand. Repurposing the existing drugs is an ideal time/cost-effective strategy to tackle the clinical impact of SARS CoV–2. Thereby, the present study is a promising strategy that proposes the repurposing of approved drugs against pivotal proteins that are responsible for the viral propagation of SARS-CoV-2 virus Angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2; 2AJF), 3CL-protease: main protease (6LU7), Papain-like protease (6W9C), Receptor Binding Domain of Spike protein (6VW1), Transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS-2; 5AFW) and Furin (5MIM) by in silico methods. Molecular docking results were analyzed based on the binding energy and active site interactions accomplished with pharmacokinetic analysis. It was observed that both anisomycin and oleandomycin bind to all selected target proteins with good binding energy, achieving the most favorable interactions. Considering the results of binding affinity, pharmacokinetics and toxicity of anisomycin and oleandomycin, it is proposed that they can act as potential drugs against the SARS CoV–2 infection. Further clinical testing of the reported drugs is essential for their use in the treatment of SARS CoV–2 infection.

Patient safety is a global problem and one of the key elements of the quality of health care systems. The human factor is a major risk factor leading to medical errors that affect patient safety. To explore the impact of this factor on patient safety in the hospitals located in the Ha'il city in Saudi Arabia; the perceptions of nurses working in governmental hospitals were assessed using a self-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were presented for the studied variables. Significant differences between the categories of the respondents’ characteristics in relation to risk factors were assessed using the Mann-Whitney test; the Kruskal-Wallis and the Spearman rank correlation test. Only 50% of the factors tested were perceived as moderate risk factors that were negatively affecting patient safety in Ha'il hospitals; namely: ‘Poor teamwork among medical staff’; ‘Unqualified medical staff’ and ‘Miscommunication among medical staff’. The substantial differences among demographic characteristics of the study sample in relation to the human resources risk factors causing medical errors was identified at P<0.05. Although the human risk factors were ranked as low to moderate; attention to and concern for all risk factors is needed by policymakers and hospital managers in order to improve patient safety in the healthcare settings in the Ha'il city in KSA.