After placing a central line in an elderly patient following a heart attack, a community hospital transferred him to a referral hospital for stenting of his coronary arteries. He was discharged to an assisted living facility 2 days later, with the central line still in place.
Bigham BL, Buick JE, Brooks SC, et al. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2012;16:20-35.
This systematic review found that the literature base on patient safety issues in prehospital care is still quite small, limiting emergency medical services providers' ability to identify and address systematic problems in care.
This monthly column highlights an initiative to introduce safer device connectors to prevent spinal and epidural medications from being delivered intravenously, discusses the value of independent double-checks, and shares thoughts on the 35th anniversary of this column.
This monthly column reports on an error involving products with similar names (quinine and quinidine) and discusses the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation's recommendations for safe use of patient-controlled analgesia.
This monthly selection of error reports discusses incidents involving incomplete administration of a two-part pediatric vaccine and drug name confusion.
This monthly selection reports on two pediatric deaths due to severe hyponatremia following postoperative fluid administration. Errors involving a missing dose clarification request, a related near miss, and medication name confusion are also described.
This monthly selection of error reports discusses incidents involving insulin preparation, automated medication cabinet stocking, and medication list filing.
This monthly error report analysis includes examples of miscommunication regarding medication allergy, incorrect dosing of opiates, and misplacement of a medication patch in an automated dispensing cabinet.
This monthly selection of reports discusses an error involving the routing of a printed label in the pharmacy, describes examples of drug name confusion, and highlights an obscure drug concentration change.
This monthly selection of medication error reports includes information about the risks of cutting medication patches, describes examples of drug name confusion, and explains the importance of indicating the purpose for the medication on prescriptions.
This monthly selection reports on pump programming errors that led to overdoses of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), miscommunication regarding dose and indication for alteplase, and a warning to not use empty prelabeled syringes.
This monthly selection of error reports includes examples of confusion regarding medication delivery instructions and sound-alike mistakes involving epinephrine and ephedrine.
This monthly selection of medication error reports describes a case of misidentifying home medications for a hospitalized patient, how character space limitations in medication administration records may cause medication errors, and fatal misuse of a fentanyl patch on a child.
This monthly selection of medication error reports addresses examples of unclear dose preparation instructions, potential insulin storage mix ups, and drug name confusion.
This monthly selection of medication error reports includes examples of errors due to drug labels and dosage as well as danger with look-alike, color-coded eye medications.
This monthly selection of medication error reports includes examples of look-alike/sound-alike medications and a discussion of immunosuppressant dosing errors.
This monthly selection of error reports describes factors contributing to iatrogenic methadone overdoses and adverse events associated with injectable colchicine.
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