Medication errors associated with surgery and other invasive procedures can result in patient harm. This 10-element guidance suggests effective practices to address identified weaknesses in perioperative and procedural medication processes. Recommendations provided cover topics such as drug labeling, communication, and risk management.

Wrong site/wrong patent surgery is a persistent healthcare never event. This report examines National Health Service (NHS) reporting data to identify how ambulatory patient identification errors contribute to wrong patient care. The authors recommend that the NHS use human factors methods to design control processes to target and manage the risks in the outpatient environment such as lack of technology integration, shared waiting area space, and reliance on verbal communication at clinic.

Wrong-site surgery in dentistry is a frequent and persistent never event. This report examines a case of pediatric wrong tooth extraction to reveal how the application of safety standards is influenced by the work environment and discusses the use of forcing functions to create barriers to error in practice.

Checklists are integrated into error reduction strategies and healthcare team communication efforts worldwide but implementation and impact of the tool varies widely. This report examines the use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist and barriers to its uptake which include lack of effective staff introduction to the content, misperceptions about the time needed to use the tool and ineffective local contextualization of the content and process.

The perioperative setting is a high-risk environment. This publication discusses the clinical foundations and application of safety concepts in perioperative practice. Chapters cover topics such as human factors, error management, cognitive aids, safety culture, and teamwork.

Surgical training is demanding and can result in burnout. This publication explores deficiencies in surgical training that can contribute to a stressful work environment and diminish the safety of care delivery. The report recommends changes to improve work climate and reduce the potential for error, including establishing a strong team culture and promoting human factors training.

This report explores techniques to detect and monitor surgical site infections (SSIs), evaluates a computer-assisted algorithm to identify patients at risk for SSIs, and makes recommendations to investigate surgery-specific risk factors.

This report makes recommendations and provides strategies to ensure safe practice in surgical care.

Harvard surgeon Atul Gawande has emerged as this generation's preeminent physician–author, through his articles in The New Yorker on topics ranging from quality improvement to the costs of health care, and his books, Complications and Better. In his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Dr. Gawande elegantly describes the history of the checklist as a quality and safety tool, in fields ranging from flying airplanes to building skyscrapers. In health care, he focuses on the Michigan Keystone Project, in which the use of checklists led to a remarkable decrease in the rate of central line–associated bloodstream infections, and on his own work with the World Health Organization's Safe Surgery Saves Lives program, where checklist use was associated with a striking decrease in surgical complications. An AHRQ WebM&M interview with Dr. Gawande discusses professionalism, surgical errors, and patient safety. A Patient Safety Primer on checklists is also featured on AHRQ PSNet.

This government report analyzes the National Health Service's efforts to enhance patient safety and recommends improving certain areas, such as adopting technology, analyzing failure, and ensuring both practitioner education and adequate staffing.

This report shares the results of an inspection into two mistakes at a Veterans Affairs (VA) health facility involving appropriate sterilization of implantable medical devices.