What is Near-Miss Reporting? And How Can it Save Lives?

The ECRI and ISMP Patient Safety Organization has reached a milestone: more than 5 million events reported since its inception. However, two thirds of the reports were about actual events that reac...

Leveraging Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement for High Reliability in Aging Services

Download your free copy of the White Paper Long-term care facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid are required to establish a quality assurance and performance improvement (QAPI) progr...

Adopt Strategies to Manage Look-Alike and/or Sound-Alike Medication Name Mix-Ups

ISMP has long advocated for increased awareness of look-alike and/or sound-alike medication name mix-ups and the implementation of safeguards to prevent them. To support this advocacy, ISMP maintai...

NAN Alert! Potassium Chloride for Injection Concentrate in EXCEL Plastic Bags

B. Braun recently announced a new presentation of potassium chloride for injection concentrate (2 mEq/mL) in a 250 mL EXCEL container plastic bag with blue and red labeling, and a blocked medicatio...

We See You: ECRI Recognizes Exceptional Health Technology Management

A popular folk musician once said, “You just get the vibe of your surroundings, and it rubs off on you.” Indeed, surroundings are very important; and when a pleasing aesthetic melds with functional...

Guidelines for Sterile Compounding and the Safe Use of Sterile Compounding Technology

Identify best practices to support safe use of technology and automation in sterile compounding.

5 Traits to Help Your Team Become a High Reliability Organization

Achieving the status “High Reliability Organization (HRO)” is now the gold standard for healthcare organizations, but there is little agreement on how to achieve it. To help you move your organizat...

ECRI's Health Technology Excellence Award: Recognizing Exceptional Health Technology Management

A popular folk musician once said, “You just get the vibe of your surroundings, and it rubs off on you.” Indeed, surroundings are very important; and when a pleasing aesthetic melds with functional...

Why You Need a Patient Safety Organization (PSO)

Healthcare workers want to keep patients safe and provide high quality care. Unfortunately, despite best intentions, erroneous, substandard, and unequal care are still too common, harming 1 in 10 h...

Healthcare Heroes Need Help Too: Mental Health Issues Grow with Pandemic Stresses

ECRI this year, named healthcare worker mental health as its second of ten patient safety concerns for 2022. For years, the healthcare community has known that the stresses of the profession can ta...

Criminalization of Human Error and a Guilty Verdict: A Travesty of Justice that Threatens Patient Safety

On March 25, 2022, most of the healthcare community were shocked and dismayed after learning that RaDonda Vaught had been convicted of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired...

The “Great Resignation” Hits Healthcare Where it already Hurts: Staffing Shortages

Across industries, the topic of worker shortages has dominated conversations because the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the “great resignation.” And healthcare is no exception. But in healthcare,...

ECRI's Top 10 Patient Safety Risks for 2022

An important part of maintaining patient safety is establishing the shared belief that despite the high-risk environment in healthcare, patient safety is possible, and it’s everyone’s responsibilit...

Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2022

Learn how to identify and address patient safety concerns in your facilities ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2022 list identifies potential sources of danger for patients and staff. We believ...

Addressing Disrespectful Behaviors and Creating a Respectful, Healthy Workplace–Part II

In late 2021, ISMP conducted a survey on disrespectful behaviors in healthcare. Any behavior that discourages the willingness of staff or patients to speak up or interact with an individual because...

4 Types of Healthcare Workplace Violence and ECRI's Guidance for Action Plans

Healthcare workers are known to suffer slip and falls, needle sticks, and back pain, but unfortunately, they also can face violence on the job. Recent shocking headlines include: Nurse Found Dead f...

Survey Suggests Disrespectful Behaviors Persist in Healthcare: Practitioners Speak Up (Yet Again) – Part I

In our September 9, 2021 newsletter, we discussed the topic of disrespectful behaviors, which have persisted in healthcare for years. Unfortunately, too many remain silent or make excuses in an att...

To Reduce Malpractice Claims Improve Communication

"Communication failures cost 1.5 times as much as claims without communication failures, and were more than twice as likely to result in a payout of more than $1 million," the Journal of Patient Sa...

Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2022 Executive Brief

Learn how to identify and address health technology hazards in your facilities ECRI’s Top 10 Health Technology Hazards list, now in its 15th year, identifies the potential sources of danger we beli...

ECRI Evidence Boot Camp 2021 Recap: Effective Methods for Rapidly Assessing the Best Available Evidence

Refresh your evidence assessment knowledge of important topics discussed at ECRI's Evidence boot camp event: Effective Methods for Rapidly Assessing the Best Available Evidence.  Healthcare payers...

Medication Safety Issues with Newly Authorized PAXLOVID

On December 22, 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for PAXLOVID, consisting of oral tablets of nirmatrelvir that are co-packaged with oral t...