No excuses: nurses lead in reducing medication errors.

摘要

Healthcare consumers have become more aware of the types and number of potentially deadly errors that occur in hospitals, in part because of recent news stories about heparin overdoses in the past year. Consumers are demanding that hospitals make public information about their infection and medication error rates and work to reduce or eliminate them. The federal government, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has ruled that as of October 2008, it will no longer reimburse hospitals for preventable hospital-acquired infections (see IV P.U.M.P. in this issue). As hospitals seek ways to improve their patient outcomes, nurses are, as always, on the front lines.