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This series offers five magazine articles exploring how diagnostic error, delayed treatment, and insufficient attention to patient concerns and medical history within the Veterans Affairs health system contributed to preventable harm and death.

As they become more prevalent, electronic medical records (EMRs) are being used to improve safety in increasingly creative ways. This newspaper article reports on efforts to engage patients in reviewing their medication lists by providing them with access to EMR systems in order to detect and correct discrepancies in data.

This report analyzes an incident of medication error that led to a patient's death, discusses the subsequent actions taken by the health board, and calls for a coordinated approach to medication reconciliation in New Zealand.

This article describes a variety of quality and safety problems in the labor and delivery ward at a large public hospital.

The author reviews the legacy of Libby Zion and how her untimely death raised awareness of the impact that resident duty hours and fatigue could have on patient care and quality.

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 announcement describes the 19 projects funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2006 that studies the potential of simulation to improve patient safety.

This report provides an assessment of health literacy data analyzed for different demographic characteristics.

This article reports on communication interventions such as SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation) that make patient hand-offs more reliable.

This article reports on a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report that details deficiencies in Kaiser's kidney transplant program.

This article reports on the investigation following the death of New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum. The investigation uncovered a range of failures in emergency care and is described in a report available via the link below.

In this article, a nurse shares her firsthand account of what it was like to be a surgical patient and the surprising safety and quality shortcomings she encountered during her hospital stay.

This article reports on a death that occurred at the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center after a patient's deteriorating vitals signs went unnoticed.

Robins, an investigative journalist, recounts the story of Libby Zion, who died at New York Hospital in 1984 allegedly at the hands of under-supervised and overworked residents. The book is an interesting and engaging account of a case and its aftermath, including the highly publicized malpractice trial and the formation of the Bell Commission, which regulated resident work-hours for the first time. The book provides an important historical context for this case and the debate surrounding it, the implications of which are still being felt today in the wake of national regulations for resident duty-hours.