Hospitals Increasingly Adopting Medication Safety Practices

Overall, hospitals’ use of safe medication practices improved “significantly” between 2000—the first year the Institute for Safe Medication Practices’ (ISMP) Medication Safety Self Assessment was conducted—and 2011, reports an article in the February 2014 Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. In 2011, 1,130 U.S. hospitals responded to the survey, a response rate of 23%. Hospitals that had a medication safety officer scored higher than those that did not across all 10 key elements. Hospitals that had high scores in regard to organizational culture and staff education on preventing medication errors were more likely to have high scores in regard to error detection, reporting, and analysis. The core characteristics that showed the greatest improvement since 2000 were communication of medication orders, patient education, and quality processes and risk management.