OBJECTIVES This study describes a computer simulation model that has been developed to explore organizational changes required to improve patient safety based on a medication error reporting system. METHODS Model parameters for the simulation model were estimated from data submitted to the MEDMARX medication error reporting system from 570 healthcare facilities in the U.S. The model's results...

Analysis of medication errors can lead to system improvement and reduced risk only if the errors are detected, reported, and used to design better patient-care practices and systems. Voluntary medication error reporting systems rely on the ability and willingness of individual physicians, pharmacists, and nurses to detect and report errors as part of their routine practice. Because of the centr...

OBJECTIVE To implement a prescribing-error reporting system in primary care offices and analyze the reports. DESIGN Descriptive analysis of a voluntary prescribing-error-reporting system SETTING Seven primary care offices in Vermont, USA. PARTICIPANTS One hundred and three prescribers, managers, nurses and office staff. INTERVENTION Nurses and office staff were asked to report all commu...

Objective: We used MEDMARX, the national medication error-reporting program, to compare medication errors reported by critical access hospitals (CAHs) to those reported by non-Federal, general community hospitals. Methods: We used the availability of pharmacist support to represent the structure and process of medication use and within-cluster resampling to account for the correlation of error ...

OBJECTIVES To understand and classify causal factors linked to medication errors and to define opportunities for systematic changes to improve the safety of prescription medication use. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS All recipients of liver, kidney, and/or pancreas allografts followed up by an academic medical center and encountered in the acute care facility, outpatient clinic, or by tele...

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP Canada) is an independent, not-for-profit organization founded in early 2000 with the goal of promoting medication safety. It operates a voluntary medication error-reporting program that receives error reports, in confidence, from nurses, pharmacists, physicians and the public. Most reports are analyzed and error prevention strategies are...

This issue brief presents the findings of a national survey whose purpose was to describe the prevalence of evidence-based safe medication practices, including the use of voluntary medication error reporting, in the nation’s smallest hospitals. The survey included questions related to all phases of the medication use process— prescribing, documenting, dispensing by a pharmacist (medication acqu...