Patient Safety Tool Kits

In a step toward Sharp's mission to further protect our patients, many Sharp employees participated alongside the San Diego Patient Safety Council in a patient safety task force. The task force evaluated care practices for patient safety improvements and developed guidelines of care and tools for San Diego County health care organizations to implement improvements.

High-Risk IV Medications Dosing Limits Guidelines of Care (2010 – 2011)
The San Diego Patient Safety Council collaborated for over two years to define guidelines on soft and hard limits for the 34 high-risk IV medications that were subjects of San Diego Patient Safety Council's first project (Safe Administration of High-Risk IV Medications). These recommendations are provided in the tool kit along with other resources for developing soft and hard IV medication limits.

Patient-Controlled Analgesia (PCA) Guidelines of Care (February 2009)
The patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) tool kit was developed by the task force to provide San Diego acute-care settings with recommendations for the standardization of intravenous PCA medication administration in the care of the opiod naive patient.

ICU Sedation Guidelines of Care (December 2009)
The San Diego Patient Safety Council developed an evidence-based standard for safe and effective management of pain, sedation and delirium in the adult ICU ventilated patient.

Safe Administration of High-Risk IV Medications (2007, Revised 2009)
Standardization of intravenous (IV) infusion medication concentrations and dosage units with and across hospitals in San Diego County was identified as a significant opportunity to reduce morbidity and mortality due to preventable, high-risk IV-related adverse drug events. The 2006 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Preventing Medication Errors, urges hospitals to take action to reduce the potential for errors. This tool kit provides the results of the work by the IV Safety Taskforce, along with tools and information to assist other acute care organizations in implementing this standard approach.

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and download these files. Please note that Sharp HealthCare does not control or endorse the information presented on external websites, nor do these websites endorse the information found on www.sharp.com.