ISMP publishes new perioperative medication safety guidelines

Editor's Note

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) on August 11 announced the publication of its first set of safe practice guidelines to support perioperative medication safety in hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and other procedural locations.

The new guidelines:

• Address best practices related to labeling and storage of perioperative medications.
• Cover drug labeling/packaging and standardization as well as medication delivery device acquisition, use, and monitoring.
• Challenge practices that limit protections offered by safety technologies, such as smart infusion pumps.
• Support the use of barcode scanning for perioperative real-time drug identification and electronic record documentation.

The new guidelines were developed under a Food and Drug Administration contract. ISMP is an affiliate of ECRI.