Pediatric patients cared for in emergency departments (EDs) are at high risk of medication errors for a variety of reasons. A multidisciplinary panel was convened by the Emergency Medical Services for Children program and the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Pediatric Emergency Medicine to initiate a discussion on medication safety in the ED. Top opportunities identified to improve m...

• the number of pharmacy profiles without patient allergy information for new admission orders. • the percentage of medication orders with “error-prone” abbreviations prohibited by hospitals. • the percentage of encounters in which two identifiers are not used to verify the patient’s identity before a drug is administered. • the time interval between prescribing and administering “stat” medicat...

Errors occur at all stages of the medication process, starting with inadequate prescribing decisions, followed by errors of distribution and administration of the drugs, failure to identify the right patient, absence of follow-up and inadequate adherence of the patient. Missing information and failure to communicate appropriate information are also relevant factors that can lead to errors. Medi...

Older adults constitute just 13% of the U.S. population, but consume 35% of all prescription drugs. They are at a particularly high risk of serious adverse events due to errors in medication-taking, but little is known about the instructions community-dwelling elders receive about their medications, or how they organize their medications at home. This Issue Brief summarizes research that descri...

In developed countries as many as one in ten patients is harmed while receiving hospital care, estimates 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from infections acquired in hospitals, and approximate 380,000 to 450,000 preventable Adverse drug events (ADEs) occurring annually in the United States. Medical errors and ADEs could be prevented by building a safer healthcare system. Therefore, the aim o...

CONTEXT Prior research has found that safety organizing behaviors of registered nurses (RNs) positively impact patient safety. However, little research exists on the joint benefits of safety organizing and other contextual factors that help foster safety. OBJECTIVES Although we know that organizational practices often have more powerful effects when combined with other mutually reinforcing pr...

Dear editor, We read with interest the article on ‘‘Over the counter MTP pills and its impact on women’s health’’ in January– february 2017 issue of your esteemed journal. This is a burning topic as it not only affects women’s health, but also increases unnecessary emergencies which obstetricians face in day to day life. We have done a similar observational study at BJRM Hospital, New Delhi, be...

Any time that information about a patient's medication is communicated, there is a potential for error that occurs because of misinterpretation of abbreviations, acronyms, and dose designations. In the following discussion, corrective approaches for reducing the use of error-prone terms will be reviewed. Terms on the "Do Not Use" list are identified and the rationale for using "Tall Man" letter...

BACKGROUND Reducing medication-related harm is a global priority; however, impetus for improvement is impeded as routine medication safety data are seldom available. Therefore, the Medication Safety Thermometer was developed within England's National Health Service. This study aimed to explore the implementation of the tool into routine practice from users' perspectives. METHOD Fifteen semi-s...

BACKGROUND This paper presents Part 1 of a two-part literature review examining medication safety in the Australian acute care setting. This review was undertaken for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care to update a previous national report on medication safety conducted in 2002. This first part of the review examines the extent and causes of medication incidents and a...