Drug diversion is a system issue that has the potential to disrupt patient access to safe, reliable medications and result in harm. These guidelines offer a structured approach for organizations to develop and implement drug diversion prevention efforts. The strategies submitted focus on foundational, organizational, and individual prevention actions that target risk points across the medication use process such as storage, prescribing, and waste disposal.

Tablet-splitting may introduce patient safety risks, such as unpredictable dosing. This systematic review and qualitative synthesis did not identify substantive evidence to support tablet-splitting concerns, with the exception of sustained-release tablets and use by older adults who may struggle to split tablets due to physical limitations.

Retained surgical items (RSI) are a never event, a serious and preventable event. After experiencing a high rate of RSIs, this United States health system implemented a bundle to reduce RSI, improve near-miss reporting, and increase process reliability in operating rooms. The bundle consisted of five elements: surgical stop, surgical debrief, visual counters, imaging, and reporting.

Previous research found that the pharmacist-led IT-based intervention to reduce clinically important medication errors (PINCER) can reduce prescription and medication monitoring errors. This qualitative study explored patients’ perceived acceptability of the PINCER intervention in primary care. Overall perceptions were positive, but participants noted that PINCER acceptability can be improved through enhanced patient-pharmacist relationships, consistent delivery of PINCER-related care, and synchronization of medication reviews with prescription renewals.

Medication errors in ambulatory care settings represent an ongoing patient safety challenge. This study characterizes ambulatory care adverse drug events reported to a large patient safety organization between May 2012 and October 2018. Anticoagulants, antibiotics, hypoglycemics, and opioids were the most commonly involved medication classes. Contributing factors included prescribing errors, failure to review clinical contraindications or drug-drug interactions, and lack of patient education or communication.

CancelRx is a health information tool designed to improve communication between electronic health record (EHR) systems and pharmacy dispensing software. This study found that CancelRx implementation eliminated the sale of electronically prescribed medications after discontinuation in the EHR, compared to prior to implementation. Researchers found that CancelRx did result in the unintentional cancellation of some prescriptions and they discuss the importance of situational awareness among providers and pharmacy staff to mitigate this issue.

Primary care rapidly shifted to telehealth and virtual visits at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study asked general practitioners (GPs) and pharmacists in Ireland about the impact of technology (i.e., virtual visits, electronic prescribing) on medication safety since the pandemic began. Both groups identified electronic prescribing as the most significant workflow change. GPs did not perceive a change in medication safety incidents due to electronic prescribing; pharmacists reported a slight increase in incidents.

Pharmacists play a critical role in medication safety during transitions of care. This multi-center study found that a transitional pharmacy care program (including teach-back, pharmacy discharge letter, home visit by community pharmacist, and medication reconciliation by both the community and hospital pharmacist) did not decrease the proportion of patients with adverse drug events (ADE) after hospital discharge. The authors discuss several possible explanations as to why the intervention did not impact ADEs and suggest that a process evaluation is needed to explore ways in which a transitional pharmacy care program could reduce ADEs.

Reporting errors is a key component of improving patient safety and patient care. Primary care prescribers and community pharmacists in Northeast England were interviewed about perceived barriers and enablers to reporting medication prescribing errors, either internally or externally. Motivation, capability, and opportunity influenced reporting behaviors.