Medication errors continue to occur despite long-standing efforts to reduce them. This article summarizes types of errors submitted to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices reporting program in 2021. The piece discusses the medications involved, recommendations for improvement, and technologies to be employed to minimize error occurrence.

Telemedicine efforts harbor both risk and reward to patients and providers. The AHRQ Safety Program for Telemedicine is a national effort to develop and implement a bundle of evidence-based interventions designed to improve telemedicine care in two settings—the cancer diagnostic process and antibiotic use. To test the bundle of interventions, the program will involve two cohorts of healthcare professionals who utilize telemedicine as a care delivery model. It is an 18-month program, beginning in June 2023, that seeks to improve the cancer diagnostic process for patients who receive some or all of their care through telemedicine. Recruitment webinars start in late January and run through early May 2023; the antibiotic use cohort will begin recruitment in December 2023. 

There is lack of consensus concerning the need for increased system and policy attention on cybersecurity challenges as a threat to patient safety. The report suggests modifications within the federal government infrastructure to increase attention to cybersecurity as a safety issue, public/private partnership opportunities, and policy development to reduce the potential for cyberattacks that impact care delivery.

Safety challenges in anesthesiology and perioperative care are high-risk situations. This segment of a reoccurring special section covers strategies for improvement such as use of databases to monitor safety, expansion of safety improvement efforts to perioperative care, and cognitive aid use enhancement.