ABSTRACT
Today, as the potency, effectiveness, and specificity of clinical drugs improve, the toxicity associated with them also increases. As a result, prevention and treatment of clinical toxicity are not limited to fortuitous encounters with random chemicals but may take on a more subtle form of exposure. This exposure, commonly referred to as pharmacotoxicology, is related to continuous and chronic use of prescription as well as nonprescription, over-the-counter (OTC)
medications for the treatment or prevention of pathologic conditions. Thus NPSGs, as established by TJC, and their derived medication safety concerns, aim to minimize the toxicity resulting from therapeutic agents. TJC identifies and describes the 16 goals in the 2008 national patient safety goals hospital program manual along with applicable rationales and implementation expectations (1). Table 3.2 lists a number of medication safety concerns from which implementation expectationsd (IEs) are developed. The IEs are used as part of a scoring system, are based on frequency of expectations, and are used to monitor patient compliance, set clinical standards of performance, and establish clinical assessment surveys as guides for hospital accreditation requirements. The IEs are then scaled and tabulated and are discussed as part of a universal protocol for addressing patient safety.
