Improving medication safety in a Latin American hospital: Examination of medication errors and the role of pharmacists.

The article presents a study on the medications most frequently associated with errors and their severity and the important role of pharmacists in patient safety. Topics include comparison of the stages in the medication-use process during which errors originated and the causes of these errors for hospitalized patients and those in the outpatient setting, medication categories identified in medication error reports, and follow-up actions taken on registered clinical alerts.