Cyberattacks and technology disruptions are increasing as a threat to patient safety. This alert identifies risks linked to cyberattacks. The authors discuss how organizations might be proactive in order to prevent the potential for data breaches and reduce their impact on care delivery and processes should cyberattacks occur.

Safety risks are present in oncology radiation therapy. This recommendation builds on existing intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) standards to highlight the importance of interdisciplinary engagement, training, and technology implementation to ensure high quality, safe IMRT is delivered to patients.

Fentanyl is a high-risk medication, whether prescribed by a health professional or obtained illicitly. This patient safety advisory encourages healthcare providers to educate their patients on the risks of counterfeit fentanyl.

Efforts to embed patient safety content into defined post-graduate medical curriculum face challenges due to time, culture, and program resource demands. This statement provides detailed safety and quality content recommendations for maternal-fetal medicine fellows that focus on topics such as safety culture, event reporting, and disparities.

Drug diversion is a system issue that has the potential to disrupt patient access to safe, reliable medications and result in harm. These guidelines offer a structured approach for organizations to develop and implement drug diversion prevention efforts. The strategies submitted focus on foundational, organizational, and individual prevention actions that target risk points across the medication use process such as storage, prescribing, and waste disposal.

The reduction of cognitive bias is generating increased interest as a diagnostic error reduction strategy. This statement introduces the concept of cognitive bias and discusses methods to manage the presence of bias in obstetrics such as debiasing training and teamwork.

Children with complex home care needs are vulnerable to medication errors. This guideline suggests strategies to enhance medication safety at home that include focusing on health literacy, prescriber actions, dosing tool appropriateness, communication, and training of caregivers. 

The over-prescribing of opioids is a recognized contributor to patient harm. This multidisciplinary panel developed six recommendations to manage pain after dental procedures while reducing harm to patients: (1) Offer alternatives to opioids after dental surgery to interested patients when clinically appropriate. (2) Avoid prescribing opioids after dental surgery if pain is comfortably management with over-the-counter medication. (3) Advise patients about non-pharmacological therapies (e.g., cold, heat, distraction). (4) Teach patients to maximize non-narcotic (over the counter) pain medication with scheduled dosing unless contraindicated. (5) Engage in shared decision-making with patients. (6) Consider factors such as medical contraindications, risk for addiction, and risk aversion when prescribing opioids.

Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to systemic weaknesses in health care. This guidance examines the impact of racism and implicit biases on pediatric patients. The policy summarizes the evidence on institutionalized racism and health to motivate the adoption of strategies to reduce that impact at the system and organizational level.

Numerous factors affect safe imaging practice, including potential harms associated with radiation, staffing demands, and patient physical and psychological well-being. This policy statement provides multidisciplinary insights on safety themes in radiology that go beyond the core concern of inappropriate radiation exposure. The authors recommend tactics to reduce the risks related to data protection, service environment, teamwork, burnout, and training.

Opioid pain medications carry high risk for adverse drug events and misuse. Due to climbing rates of opioid use and associated adverse events, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines for prescribing opioid medications for chronic pain. These guidelines do not apply to patients receiving cancer treatment, palliative care, or end-of-life care. The authors recommend using opioids for chronic pain only if nonopioid medications and nonpharmacologic approaches to chronic pain are not effective and prescribing immediate-release instead of long-acting medications. For acute pain, they recommend limiting duration of therapy, stating that more than 1 week of medications should rarely be needed. The guidelines also suggest minimizing concurrent use of opioids and other sedating medications and dispensing naloxone to prevent overdoses. A previous WebM&M commentary describes an adverse event related to opioids. The guidelines were updated in 2022. 

Ambulatory pharmacy service is provided in various settings, including communities, skilled nursing facilities, and patient-centered medical care homes. Elements related to safety in this environment include leadership, patient care, distribution, and facility characteristics. This American Society of Health-System Pharmacists guideline reviews eight standards that can be adapted to support safe medication delivery in a wide range of ambulatory settings.

This piece describes a framework for applying elements of professionalism to clinical teamwork policies to drive safer care coordination.

This revision of the 2010 committee statement describes important characteristics for tracking systems and patient reminders to prevent missed or delayed diagnoses.

This updated policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics reviews the epidemiology of medical errors in children, examines unique issues in safety for pediatric patients, and discusses specific approaches to improving safety in pediatrics. The article emphasizes the responsibility of pediatricians to be familiar with patient safety concepts and techniques, and the importance of establishing a culture of safety in both inpatient and outpatient settings. The article concludes with a series of specific recommendations for advancing the science of patient safety within the field of pediatrics.

This article shares a set of comprehensive standards to guide safe administration of outpatient chemotherapy to adult patients.