Changes in both technical and organizational strategies are often required to prevent medication errors, and a combined approach may be superior to making changes in only one of these areas. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to implement changes in both areas, but the incentive of accreditation may be helpful. In addition to the difficulty of [...]

This survey was the first to systematically examine the reporting of medication errors and adverse drug events in Canadian ICUs. Responses came from a wide variety of Canadian ICUs, and only 3 provinces were not represented. Responses were obtained almost equally from academic, community teaching, and community nonteaching hospitals. In a similar recently reported survey [...]

Voluntary Reporting Paper reports were the most popular method (16/26 [62%]) for voluntary reporting of medication errors (Figure 2). Other methods were intranet, phone calls, and Internet (Figure 2). Netsafe, Meditech EMR, and Risk MonitorPro were reported as the web-based systems in use. An internal e-mail system built into the computer system was reported by [...]

Responses were received from 34 pharmacists working in 31 ICUs. The survey response rate was 39% (31/79) in terms of the number of ICUs or 23% (34/146) in terms of the num­ber of respondents. Response rates by question, according to number of individuals responding, were 100% (34/34) for questions 1, 4, 5, and 6; 91% [...]