Medications and the Culture of Safety: Conference Title: At the Precipice of Quality Health Care: The Role of the Toxicologist in Enhancing Patient and Medication Safety Venue ACMT Pre-Meeting Symposium, 2014 North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology,New Orleans,LA

Medication mishaps are a common cause of morbidity and mortality both within and outside of hospitals. While the use of a variety of technologies and techniques have promised to improve these statistics, instead of eliminating errors, new ones have appeared as quickly as old ones have been improved. To truly improve safety across the entire enterprise, we must ensure that we create a culture that is willing to accept that errors occur in normal course of operation to the best of people. Focus must not be on punishment and shame, but rather building a fault tolerant system that maintains safety of both staff and patients.