Medication errors are the second most common cause of adverse patient safety incidents and the single most common preventable cause of adverse events in medical practice. Given the high human fatalities and financial burden of medication errors for healthcare systems worldwide, reducing their occurrence is a global priority. Therefore, appropriate policies to reduce medication errors, using nat...

INTRODUCTION Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) are among the most significant technological advances of this decade. The objective of this technology is to manufacture " systems " whose dimensions are only a few hundred microns. Devices with applications ranging from drug delivery systems to telecommunications are currently under development. Their reduced size and weight give them unique a...

Contributors and acknowledgements: Xuan Hao Chan, International Pharmaceutical Federation; Jane Sutton, University of Bath, United Kingdom; International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP); FIP Patient Safety Working Group; World Health Organization World Alliance for Patient Safety; Finnish Cultural Foundation; Finnish Pharmacists’ Association; Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki; Pharmac...

Carol A. Keohane is Project Director for the Center of Excellence for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass. The Center’s efforts are aimed at improving medication safety across clinical settings. Judy Hayes is the Director of Professional Practice Quality and Staff Development at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Ms Hayes is considered a leader in imple...

Interoperability among medication classification systems is known to be limited. We investigated the mapping of the Established Pharmacologic Classes (EPCs) to SNOMED CT. We compared lexical and instance-based methods to an expert-reviewed reference standard to evaluate contributions of these methods. Of the 543 EPCs, 284 had an equivalent SNOMED CT class, 205 were more specific, and 54 could n...

The mass-spring model of electrostatically actuated microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) or nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) is pervasive in the MEMS and NEMS literature. Nonetheless a rigorous analysis of this model does not exist. Here periodic solutions of the canonical mass-spring model in the viscosity dominated time harmonic regime are studied. Ranges of the dimensionless average app...

A mixed-domain schematic representation compatible with nodebased behavioral simulators is developed for rapid design of suspended microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Hierarchical models of several basic microelectromechanical elements are created. The components are interconnected to represent both devices and more complex systems. Using beams, masses, and electrostatic actuators as the fun...

conclusions the sophistication of electronic prescription and integration with ehr will become a reality, if all its stakeholders collaborate in developing fast and secure electronic prescription systems. it is plausible that the required infrastructure should be provided for implementation of the national integrated electronic prescription systems in countries without the system. given the bar...

BACKGROUND This paper presents Part 2 of a literature review examining medication safety in the Australian acute care setting. This review was undertaken for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, updating the 2002 national report on medication safety. Part 2 of the review examined the Australian evidence base for approaches to build safer medication systems in acute ca...