This reoccurring report compiles patient safety data collected by Massachusetts hospitals. The 2022 numbers document an increase in serious reportable events recorded in acute care hospitals, from 1430 the previous year to 1632. This presentation also includes events from ambulatory surgery centers. Older reports are also available.

Efforts to reduce misuse of prescription opioids must draw from public health and behavioral strategies to be successful. This news article reports on an analysis of surgical pain management practice changes used in 43 hospitals in response to prescription guidelines.

Solutions to address the opioid epidemic should focus on both public health and individual behaviors. This news article reports on an analysis of 5 years of Medicare data that revealed particular physician prescribing behaviors that exceed current guidelines and contribute to opioid misuse.

Innovations in the prescribing of opioids in the emergency department are needed to change practice and help address the opioid crisis. This news article reports the results of a 10-hospital pilot program, the Colorado Opioid Safety Collaborative, which used alternative pain control approaches to reduce opioid prescriptions by an average of 36%. The program builds on multidisciplinary teamwork to modify pain management in the emergency department. An Annual Perspective highlighted opioid misuse as a patient safety challenge.

Overprescribing of opioids for pain management contributes to the growing crisis involving opioid-related harm. This newspaper article reports on one hospital's efforts to avoid opioid use for patients presenting to the emergency department with pain. Alternative treatments included nonnarcotic infusions, nitrous oxide, music therapy, and holistic techniques.

Using data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, this report updates a 2004 analysis of medication-related adverse events and includes incidents in emergency departments.

This newspaper article reports on a fatal medication error involving an anticoagulant overdose.

This article highlights how a medication error inspired Dennis Quaid to promote patient safety and chronicles his efforts to reduce harm in health care.

This news story discusses Utah sentinel event statistics and compares them with 2007 data.

As part of the "Health for Life" series, Drs. Berwick and Leape discuss the notion of completely eliminating medical errors and share stories about several hospitals' efforts to raise safety standards.

This article reports on the deaths of three infants from heparin overdoses and describes how the hospital community has responded to the errors.

This article reports on efforts to reduce use of certain medications and instruments that can cause harm during labor and delivery.

This article reports on incidents of wrong drug and wrong route administration of epidurals in the United Kingdom's National Health Service.

This article reports on the death of a pregnant 18-year-old after an overdose of magnesium sulfate.

In this article, an emergency medicine physician describes the work environment of emergency medical technicians and paramedics and why it is prone to error.

Created in 2001 to institute changes in health care across the United Kingdom, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) presents their first report of patient safety incidents. The two-part report begins with a general discussion of incident reporting, the basis for a national reporting system, and the development of the Patient Safety Observatory. The second part builds on this framework by discussing how the acquired data can be used and translated into safer health care strategies. The report itself encompasses more than 85,000 collected incident reports with analysis, comparisons, and case studies to illustrate important safety issues for future efforts. This represents the first of a series of expected reports from NPSA on patient safety data to be published.

This article reports on Ohio Valley General Hospital's intravenous safety system. Using bar code scanning to provide important patient information, the system automates checks for intravenous medication administration.