Readmission reduction as an improvement measure has been found to be problematic as a maternal safety outcome. This statement shares concerns regarding incentivizing hospitalization reductions after birth and explores the potential for patient harm due to pressures to reduce readmissions when needed.

This document shares goals and objectives to enhance use of automated dispensing devices for pharmacists, other practitioners, and information system professionals.

Revised June 2021. The Joint Commission issues sentinel event alerts to highlight areas of high risk and to promote rapid adoption of risk reduction strategies. This newly released alert focuses on violence in the health care setting, noting increasing rates of violent crimes such as assault, rape, and homicide, which are consistently among the top 10 types of sentinel events reported. Controlling access is viewed as a key protection strategy, and the alert also outlines techniques for identifying violent individuals and for training staff in violence management. The alert summarizes a series of suggested actions that will allow organizations to safeguard against these events. Adherence to sentinel event alert recommendations is assessed as part of Joint Commission accreditation surveys.

Smart infusions pumps with built-in dose error reduction software (DERS) are designed to protect against dosing errors that result in patient harm. This alert summarizes recommendations to enhance the effective implementation and use of smart infusion pumps such as drug library maintenance and pump error report monitoring.

Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to systemic weaknesses in health care. This guidance examines the impact of racism and implicit biases on pediatric patients. The policy summarizes the evidence on institutionalized racism and health to motivate the adoption of strategies to reduce that impact at the system and organizational level.

Professionals have an ethical responsibility to seek assistance or amend their workload if they are unable to practice safely. This position paper summarizes five areas of focus to ensure physicians regain skills to practice safely after recovering from impairment. The authors highlight the need for the development of best practices to address these situations and encourage maintaining physician well-being as a professional priority.