This poster provides examples of medication orders with ambiguous or difficult-to-read abbreviations as well as how they should be written out.
Resource Library
These resources are developed from ISMP's review of reports through its national error reporting programs, peer-reviewed articles in its publications, and/or consensus gathering summits on topics pertinent to specific errors or hazards. ISMP offers a wide range of downloadable and easy to use resources. Many are free.
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It is essential that healthcare practitioners place a zero in front of decimal points in drug dosages to help prevent ten-fold overdoses. This poster emphasizes that without the zero, the decimal point is often overlooked, and provides an example.
Quick reference guide to several of ISMP’s lists and resources.
This poster presents sample drug orders with "q.d." and "q.i.d." that show how those abbreviations can be confused, and emphasizes that they be spelled out for greater clarity.
It is uncommon to need more than 2 or 3 tablets, capsules, vials, ampules, etc. to prepare a single dose of medication. This poster alerts healthcare professionals to this fact and urges verifying with a pharmacist medication doses that seem to require more than 2 or 3 of anything.
Crushing or splitting some oral medications may alter the intended effect and possibly result in patient harm. This poster provides a checklist of questions that healthcare practitioners should ask before they consider crushing or splitting medications.
A quick reference for appropriate antidotes. Features include antidote names, dosing, ADRs, and monitoring parameters. Wall Charts are shipped by a 3rd party supplier. Wall Charts are shipped on Thursdays only. Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
This chart presents a guide to management of extravasation in adult patients.
Chart with guidelines for use of anticoagulants, thrombolytics, and antiplatelet agents prior to, during, and after surgical procedures.
This wall chart includes both generic/brand names, identification of first line ACLS drugs, mechanism of actions and uses, dosage/administration, adverse drug reactions, contraindications and special considerations for medications supplied in crash carts. Wall Charts are shipped by a 3rd party...
This chart includes look-alike and sound-alike name pairs. Use this resource to help determine which medications require safeguards to reduce the risk of errors. Both the US Food and Drug Administration-approved and the ISMP-recommended tall-man (mixed case) letters have been included. Wall Charts...
This wall chart is used to ensure the safety and integrity of drugs that are tubed via pneumatic systems.
This is an excellent resource for standardization of push rates in your institution.
EPINEPHrine is dosed by weight when used to treat an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis, not by whether the patient is an adult or child. Thus, generic brands of the EPINEPHrine autoinjector do not use the abbreviation “Jr” for the 0.15 mg dosage strength (see Figure 1). The abbreviation “Jr” is...
Eighty-one percent of respondents (mostly nurses) to our 2018 survey reported that they have used a prefilled 0.9% sodium chloride (saline) flush syringe to reconstitute or dilute an IV push medication, particularly the 5 mL or 10 mL flush syringes. This unsafe practice has increased since our 2014...
Identify and manage targeted risks associated with IV push use.
Helps consumers understand how errors happen and the steps necessary to keep them safe.
Detailed information for hospital leadership on the value a Medication Safety Officer can provide.