… implementation of barcode technology systems. … Leung AA, Denham CR, Gandhi TK, et al. A safe practice standard for …

Health information technology (IT) safety is the greatest concern of health care leaders in this study. Using the adage "trust but verify," this article outlines a framework to measure and monitor performance of health IT following implementation.

This review identifies technological advances in diagnostic imaging and outlines concerns that must be addressed to ensure safe radiation dosing.

Health care–associated infections (HAIs) remain a major contributor to preventable morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients, despite some progress in combating certain infections. This economic analysis combined a systematic review of estimates of costs attributable to HAIs with HAI incidence data to project hospitals' total financial burden caused by these infections in adult inpatients. The authors conclude that the 5 most common HAIs result in an annual cost to the health care system of nearly $10 billion. Since the majority of HAIs are considered preventable, this finding implies that considerable savings could be achieved through more rigorous HAI prevention efforts. Although the study is limited by the heterogeneous methods of determining costs used in the original studies, other studies have shown a relatively strong business case for hospitals to invest in efforts to prevent HAIs.

Using the specific example of health care–associated infections, this article provides a framework for making a business case for patient safety.

… patients can drive patient safety improvement efforts. … Denham CR. The partnership with patients: a call to action …

This article presents four key approaches to quality initiatives in radiology: safety, process improvement, outcome assessment, and satisfaction.

This article discusses verbal communication and how human factors, authority gradients, team interaction, health literacy, and active listening can affect safety improvement.

This article relates personal experiences of medical errors and offers a powerful message to providers by discussing how disclosure might have influenced family members' healing in the aftermath of these preventable incidents.

This commentary presents information and background on the standardized communication process known as SBAR (situation, background, assessment, and recommendation). The author proposes reformulating the SBAR model for patients and provides an example of the framework.

The author discusses the psychological impact of medical error on clinicians and shares interviews with several patient safety experts on this topic. He proposes a list of five rights to which caregivers are entitled following an unintentional error.

In this AHRQ-funded study, the authors reviewed elements of the hospital discharge process and defined 11 components that should be required to ensure a reliable and safe hospital discharge.

The author interviews patient safety leaders on the role of the "patient safety officer" and suggests guidelines for developing this position.

The authors discuss the National Quality Forum (NQF) computerized physician order entry (CPOE) standard, review the evidence of CPOE efficacy, document impact and metrics, describe CPOE implementation challenges, and suggest updates to the current NQF standard.

… 2005 National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) Congress. … Denham C; Bagian J; Daley J; Edgman-Levitan S; Gelinas L; O'Leary D; Sheridan S; Wachter R. …