Pediatric medication administration in prehospital care is challenging due to the need to obtain an accurate weight and calculate dosing. The Los Angeles County emergency medical services implemented a Medical Control Guideline (MCG) to eliminate the need to calculate the dose of a commonly administered medication. Following implementation of the MCG, dosing errors decreased from 18.5% to 14.1% in pediatric prehospital care.

This position statement shares 11 recommendations drawn from a review of the evidence to improve the safety of pediatric dosing in pre-hospital emergent situations. Suggestions for improvement include use of kilograms as the standard unit of weight, pre-calculated weight-based dosing, and dose-derivation strategies to minimize use of calculations in real time.   

The authors surveyed over 4,000 care aids from 93 urban nursing homes in Western Canada to assess the association of work environment with missed and rushed essential care tasks. During their most recent shift, over half of care aids (57.4%) reported missing at least one essential care task and two-thirds (65.4%) reported rushing at least one essential care task. Work environments with better work culture and more effective leadership were associated with fewer missed or rushed care tasks.

This qualitative study sought to assess safety culture among practitioners performing spinal manipulation, mostly chiropractors and physiotherapists. Investigators found that concerns about patient safety were mingled with issues such as competing for business in a fee-for-service model and establishing professionalism when credentials are not consistent. They suggest that a shared understanding of the risks associated with spinal manipulation is needed before incident reporting across multiple practitioner types can be implemented.