Reducing preventable harm in healthcare settings remains a national priority. This report summarizes the results of the prioritization process used to identify patient safety practices meriting inclusion in the fourth installment of the Making Healthcare Safer (MHS) series (previous installments were published in 2001, 2013, and 2020). The fifteen-member Technical Expert Panel identified 27 priority patient safety practices for examination in the forthcoming report, including several practices that have not been covered in previous MHS reports (e.g., family/caregiver engagement, preventing non-ventilator associated pneumonia, supply chain disruption, high reliability, post-event communication programs).

Community pharmacies are common providers of medication delivery that harbor process weaknesses affecting safety. This guidance shares evidence-based steps to address problems such as wrong patient errors and lack of consistent barcode system use in the community setting.

Neuromuscular blocking agents are high alert medications that can severely harm patients if used incorrectly. This announcement alerts clinicians to the absence of warning statements on two types of paralyzing agents, as well as to steps to minimize mistaken use.

This newly issued follow up to the seminal AHRQ Making Health Care Safer report (first published in 2001 and updated in 2013 critically examines the evidence supporting 47 separate patient safety practices chosen for the high-impact harms they address. It includes diagnostic errors, failure to rescue, sepsis, infections due to multi-drug resistant organisms, adverse drug events and nursing-sensitive conditions. The report discusses the evidence on cross-cutting safety practices, including safety culture, teamwork and team training, clinical decision support, patient and family engagement, cultural competency, staff education and training, and monitoring, audit and feedback. The report provides recommendations for clinicians and decision-makers on effective patient safety practices.

Smart pumps are widely available as a medication safety tool yet there are challenges affecting their reliable use. This guideline expands on earlier recommendations  to support smart pump use in both hospitals and the ambulatory setting. The material provides recommendations that address infrastructure, drug libraries, quality improvement data, workflow and electronic health record interoperability concerns.

Design flaws and improper use of technologies that transfer medication and prescription information between provider environments is a known threat to patient safety. This report analyzes an anticoagulant overdose incident and found that information technology missteps contributed to the error.

Standard term selection tools—like pick lists or drop-down menus—in information technology can create opportunities for user error due to human factors. This publication explores how mistakes such as selecting the wrong drug from an ordering pick list can occur in the ambulatory environment. The report includes recommendations and resources to help enhance medication safety when using these tools.

Overdoses of opioid medications are considered an epidemic in the United States. This website provides access to various resources for hospitals and clinicians to help them address this patient safety concern as part of a larger collection of materials related to the effective use of health information technology. Sections include guidelines, clinical decision support, electronic prescribing, and prescription drug monitoring programs.

This report provides two example scenarios—inpatient medication reconciliation and medication management in ambulatory care—to explore how improved information exchange can support safe medication management.

This wiki article includes a definition of computer-based provider order entry and other information, such as system elements, implementation tips, and unintended consequences.

With 4 volumes and 140 articles (all of which are freely available through the link below), this expansive collection of literature illustrates the progress made since the 1999 Institute of Medicine’s report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. The efforts represent a successful collaboration between the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Department of Defense-Health Affairs in meeting the challenge of improving patient safety knowledge, research, and implementation.