Having family members or patient advocates present during hospitalizations can help prevent errors. This newsletter article suggests that utilizing this risk prevention strategy in peripheral care areas such as radiology and other testing units could also prevent patient harm. Recommendations to ensure success of this approach include communicating with advocates, encouraging them to speak up, and activating a rapid response to patient deterioration.

This article provides screening, dosing, and monitoring recommendations for using basal opioid infusions and patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) in patients at risk for developing respiratory depression.

This article discusses one hospital's initiative to empower patients and their families to call for a rapid response team if they feel it is necessary.

In this interview, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Director Carolyn M. Clancy talks about the role of health information technology in patient safety initiatives and shares strategies for successful implementation.

This study discusses how analysis of rapid response team calls identified a recurrent pattern of medication errors, and describes the steps taken to prevent such errors.

This column explains that some hospitals now afford patients and families the right to summon an immediate clinical response to a patient's worsening condition.

This article describes medical emergency teams and how they are being utilized in several hospitals.

This article discusses the advent of rapid response teams and describes how several hospitals have empowered patients or their families to initiate them.

This article reports on the implementation of rapid response teams in Boston hospitals and the potential for reducing patient mortality.

This article, accompanying the widely read ranking of "America's Best Hospitals," describes the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100,000 Lives Campaign. Focusing on the six practices promoted by the campaign, it reviews the progress to date, with a particular focus on two participating hospitals' (Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey and McLeod Regional Medical Center in South Carolina) experiences in implementing the practices.