Children with complex home care needs are vulnerable to medication errors. This guideline suggests strategies to enhance medication safety at home that include focusing on health literacy, prescriber actions, dosing tool appropriateness, communication, and training of caregivers. 

Although hard-stop alerts can improve safety, they have been shown to result in unintended consequences such as delays in care. This systematic review suggests that while implementing hard stops can lead to improved health and process outcomes, end-user involvement is essential to inform design and appropriate workflow integration.

Discontinuity between providers is a well-documented source of errors, as prior research has documented safety problems arising from handoffs and signouts in the hospital and at the time of hospital discharge. The need for accurate information transfer between providers is no less important for patients seen in the emergency department (ED), but this study found that most pediatricians were unaware that their asthma patients had required an ED visit. This occurred despite the existence of a structured system for communication between the ED and primary care physicians. Many patients also failed to follow up in clinic as instructed, perhaps corroborating prior research showing that many ED patients do not fully comprehend discharge instructions. This study adds another facet to the problem of patient safety in chronic disease management.