Pharmacotherapeutic friendly fire in the intensive care unit: high stakes seeking high calibre
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Correspondence: Christopher S Parshuram christopher.parshuram@sickkids.ca
Department of Critical Care Medicine, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X8
Center for Safety Research, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X8
Child Health and Evaluation Sciences Program, The Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X8
Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Critical Care 2008, 12:137 doi:10.1186/cc6858
Published: 22 April 2008Abstract
Increasing numbers of patients are surviving the intensive care unit. Concordant with our shifting focus to minimizing intensive care unit-acquired morbidity, in the present issue of Critical Care Moyen, Camire, and Stelfox describe the importance of quality pharmacotherapy. They describe challenges and potential solutions to this source of iatrogenic injury in our vulnerable patients. Their article reminds us not to understate the importance of medication error, to avoid overstating the benefits of incompletely proven methods to prevent medication error, and to distinguish harmful medication errors from other types of medication error.