Patients receiving hemodialysis are at risk of complications, including air embolus. This report describes how unfamiliar equipment and lack of standardized training contributed to the death of a dialysis patient due to air embolus. Safety recommendations include changes in medical education on how to handle uncertainty in clinical settings and amending dialysis guidelines to include risk of air embolus associated with unclamped central venous catheters.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) support transparency through the provision of publicly available information on the quality of health care service in the United States. This portal enables access to comparative quality and safety data from doctors & clinicians, hospital, nursing home, home health, hospice, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals, and dialysis facilities to support informed consumer health care provider selection activities.

Detailing a recent lethal overdose of heparin, this piece describes common risks and offers suggestions to improve the safety of heparin administration.

The authors discuss the development of computerized ordering screens for renal replacement therapy.