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Inconsistent patient name entry practices in electronic health records can contribute to wrong-patient errors. This magazine article reports on the complex nature of addressing patient-matching discrepancies as an economic, privacy, and technical problem. Improvement strategies include the development and adoption of a national identification program and biometric technology. A WebM&M commentary discussed problems associated with name similarities in the electronic patient record.

Structured handoffs can reduce communication problems that contribute to medical error. This magazine article reports on how I-PASS implementation can help enhance the quality and completeness of handoffs, highlights the need for pharmacists to be more engaged in handoff improvement, and offers insights for enhancing their role in the process. In a past PSNet interview, Dr. Amy Starmer discussed the implementation and findings of the landmark I-PASS study.

Medication errors continue to be a worldwide patient safety challenge that requires both systems and individual practice strategies for improvement. This magazine article describes how pharmacists can address failures associated with processing, dosing, care transitions, and information sharing to prevent medication errors.

This article describes an intervention that trained health coaches to use mobile technology to assess the health status of recently discharged Medicare patients, first during an in-home visit 48 hours after leaving the hospital and then with weekly phone calls over a 3-week period. The program resulted in decreased readmission rates and significant cost savings.

This newsletter article details the characteristics of successful community liaison programs, which facilitate transitions from hospital to home, and describes how such programs can reduce the risk of medication discrepancies.

This news article uses an example of a preventable readmission to illustrate how ineffective communication during care transitions can affect patients after hospital discharge.

This series includes articles on "doorway diagnosis" (or a doctor's assessment of a patient before an exam begins), anesthesiologists addicted to painkillers, and medical mistakes in the emergency room.

This article summarizes the results of Institute for Safe Medication Practices' (ISMP's) national survey on medication reconciliation.