title: Improving patient safety by eliminating unsafe abbreviations from medication prescribing.
abstract: The hazardous medication-ordering practices in the accompanying table are the focus of a provincial initiative led by the Health Quality Council of Alberta to improve patient safety across the continuum of care. This is not just a prescriber issue--it is a culture of practice issue that is perpetuated in many ways throughout the health-care system, often inadvertently by the myriad of ways health professionals communicate about medication orders.
authors.affiliation: Health Quality Council of Alberta.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cowell
mesh_terms: D000004:Abbreviations as Topic; D000416:Alberta; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D050316:Medical Order Entry Systems; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000379:methods / Q000517:prevention & control*; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods*; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000379:methods