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Edited by Philip Aspden, Julie A. Wolcott, J. Lyle Bootman, and Linda R. Cronenwett; Institute of Medicine (United States), Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors, 480 pp, $54.95.
Washington, DC, National Academies Press, 2007.
ISBN 0-309-10147-6.

JAMA. 2007;297:1717.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

This is the latest in the Institute of Medicine Quality Chasm Series focused on assessing and improving health care at a national level. The book carefully assesses peer-reviewed literature to emphasize that injury is conservatively estimated to occur in 380 000 to 450 000 adverse drug events in US hospitals. Outpatient injuries due to medication errors occur even more frequently, with 530 000 such events occurring annually in the US Medicare senior population alone. Building on its predecessors, Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) and Patient Safety (2004), this report synthesizes evidence to arrive at useful recommendations that can be implemented immediately, depending on your organization's resources, connectivity, and propensity for change.

The 17 main committee members are professors from schools of medicine, nursing, and pharmacy, leading teachers of informatics and health policy, plus a representative of the advocacy group, Peoples Medical Society. This is doubtless an impressive group of scholars. A potential shortcoming . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Prentiss Taylor, MD, Reviewer
Rush University
Chicago, Ill
prentiss.taylor@comcast.net