Patient misidentification errors can result in serious patient harm. The authors reviewed over 1.3 million electronic orders for inpatients at one New York hospital between 2016 and 2018 and found that wrong-patient order errors occurred more frequently on obstetric units than medical-surgical units. Medication errors were the largest source of order errors and commonly involved antibiotics and opioid and non-opioid analgesics.

Patients admitted to the hospital in acute trauma situations may be given an alias for medical record purposes during their hospitalization. This survey of critical care clinicians (attending and trainee physicians, registered nurses, and nurse practitioners) reported that alias use can cause confusion in caring for critically ill patients. The authors recommend avoiding aliases and using actual patient identifiers as soon as possible.

Wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-patient errors are surgical never events. This commentary describes a structured communication practice requirement designed to address the problem. The author outlines elements of the protocol and reviews implementation strategies.

This article discusses the reasons for utilizing the Joint Commission Universal Protocol for time outs and describes a process for implementing its use.

This guidance statement outlines recommendations from the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) for developing, implementing, and evaluating safe medication practices in the perioperative environment.