Delays in diagnosis and treatment during life-threatening emergencies such as strokes can result in irreversible patient harm. This article discusses a variety of factors contributing to errors in administering hypertonic sodium chloride in emergent situations. The piece shares recommendations touching on various elements of the medication delivery process to enhance safety.

This article reports on the results of a survey on the use of practices to improve the safety of prescribing and dispensing of long-acting opioids and use of the override feature in automated dispensing cabinets. The approximately 250 hospitals responding shared experience indicating weakness in implementing improvement efforts on the two practices studied. The results found that hospitals employing a medication safety officer had stronger uptake of the best practices.