A Prescription for Safety: Medication Error Reporting, Education, and Advocating for Change
Abstract
In 1974, pharmacist Michael Cohen learned of a serious adverse event with insulin at a hospital and began sharing information about it with other pharmacists to prevent the error from happening again. Twenty years later, he founded the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) with the same goal: collecting healthcare workers’ stories and reports about medication errors to improve patient safety.
We spoke with Cohen, guest editor of this issue, about ISMP’s ongoing initiatives and the biggest challenges in medication and vaccination safety facing pharmacists today.
