Establishing a Culture of Patient Safety Through a Low-tech Approach to Reducing Medication Errors

Abstract : Transforming an organizational culture is a worthy and achievable endeavor, even when faced with limitations in funding and technology that appear as insurmountable obstacles. Equally ominous but necessary is the need to conquer commonplace problems such as medication errors. This paper will detail the means used at one hospital facility to make medication errors and their reduction a primary staff focus, and how a highly generalizable, low-tech, and cost-conscious error-reduction methodology spurred a successful shift toward an organization-wide culture of patient safety.