Introducing SALUTE: Ensuring Equitable Healthcare for Veterans

Designing a healthcare delivery system that ensures equitable care for all patients is crucial for achieving total systems safety. This includes building partnerships among patients, families, and ...

Call to Action: Standardization and Smarter Logic Needed to Prevent Drug Name Selection Errors

Problem: Since 2019, ISMP has recommended entering, at a minimum, the first five letter characters of a drug name (unless the name has fewer than five letters) during searches in automated dispensi...

How to Navigate the New ISMP Website

ISMP has a new website (www.ismp.org) that has been integrated with the website of our affiliate organization, ECRI, to help simplify sign-ins and streamline access to our many services and product...

Diagnostic Excellence in Dementia Care White Paper

Learn more about barriers to timely and accurate dementia diagnosis, and how a systems safety strategy can improve diagnostic excellence. ECRI's white paper: Diagnostic Excellence in Dementia Care ...

Kentucky law prevents practitioners from being criminally charged for medical errors

We were pleased to learn that Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear recently signed a bill (House Bill 159) into law that protects healthcare practitioners from being criminally charged for medical errors...

ISMP Urges Increased Action at the Practice Level to Halt the Growing Danger of Counterfeit Drugs

Problem: Counterfeit drugs, or fake drugs, made to resemble genuine pharmaceutical manufacturers’ medications (Figure 1), have been a longstanding threat to the health and safety of patients. Alarm...

List of Error-Prone Abbreviations

This list includes abbreviations, symbols, and dose designations that have been frequently misinterpreted and involved in harmful or potentially harmful medication errors.

What Hospitals Need to Know: Using Water During Processing of Medical Devices

Every day, hospitals’ central sterile processing teams rely on water as they clean and sterilize a variety of medical devices. In this blog, ECRI outlines general considerations to support safe and...

Using Evidence to Facilitate Physician-Patient Conversations about GLP-1 RAs

Glucagon-like peptide receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) now available to promote weight loss—Wegovy (semaglutide), Zepbound (tirzepatide), and Saxenda (liraglutide)—could potentially make much needed g...

Implement Strategies to Prevent Persistent Medication Errors and Hazards: 2024

Reflecting on events that occurred in 2023, we have identified the top three medication errors and hazards that were recurring themes in the ISMP Medication Safety Alert!, which our affiliate ECRI,...

ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2024

ECRI recently published our Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2024 Special Report—the annual guide that calls attention to pressing patient safety concerns facing the healthcare industry. For thi...

IWD 2024: How to Continue Progress in Cervical Cancer Screening

International Women’s Day is an opportune time to celebrate improvements in women’s health outcomes—and reflect on steps we can take to achieve even more progress. For this blog, we’re focusing on ...

Monitoring Patients Who Take GLP-1 RAs for Weight Loss – What Prescribers Should Know

Roughly one year after their introduction, Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) continue to shake up the obesity treatment landscape in the United States. Uptake for these two glucagon-l...

Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2024

Learn how to identify and address patient safety concerns in your facilities ECRI's Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2024 identifies imminent safety challenges for patients and staff that we beli...

Weighing the Evidence on New Weight Loss Drugs – Five Takeaways

The prevalence of overweight and obesity keeps worsening in America despite our enormous collective effort to lose weight. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that overwei...

Three New Best Practices in the 2024-2025 Targeted Medication Safety Best Practices for Hospitals

ISMP has released its 2024-2025 Targeted Medication Safety Best Practices for Hospitals, whose purpose is to identify, inspire, and mobilize widespread, national adoption of consensus-based Best Pr...

15 Years as a PSO. Decades Improving Safety.

This year, ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO celebrates our 15th anniversary as an AHRQ-listed Patient Safety Organization. Over this decade and a half, we have worked tirele...

The Insidious Dangers of Disposable Isolation Gowns—and How to Address Them

Isolation gowns are a longstanding infection control tool across hospital settings. These garments are intended to safeguard patients and clinicians by preventing the spread of disease-causing micr...

Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2024 Executive Brief

Learn how to identify and address health technology hazards in your facilities ECRI's Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2024 list identifies the potential sources of danger we believe warrant th...

Exploring Oral Hygiene’s Role in Reducing Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a lung infection that develops 48 hours or more after initiating invasive mechanical ventilation. Mechanical ventilation assists breathing in patients who h...

High-Alert Medications in Acute Care Settings

Medications requiring special safeguards to reduce the risk of errors and minimize harm.