Medication safety... Your call to make a difference

Making system improvements for safer medication use in hospitals requires leadership from the top of the organization. We need hospital administrative staff to believe in and support efforts for the promotion of a culture of patient safety. Individual staff in every discipline are also in a position to make significant contributions to safety in the system as a whole. Front-line staff are relied upon to carry out and ensure implementation of hospital-wide strategies for medication safety. More importantly, it is often the front-line practitioners who are in a position to identify potential problems in processes, procedures and practices related to medication use in hospitals. Following are some brief descriptions of how individual practitioners can promote medication safety in our complex hospital systems.