Usually, summer is a time for folks in Washington, D.C., to flee town and enjoy cool weather outside the Capitol Beltway. This summer has been anything but usual.

Walter McClure, one of the nation’s most astute health policy analysts, is rightfully recognized as one of the principal architects of strategies to harness market forces as an instrument for healthcare system reform (Business Week, 1982; Iglehart, 1988).

The healthcare system in the United States is in desperate need of disruptive innovation. Encouraged by our culture of “new, bigger, quicker, better,” technology innovates upward to create specialized products and services.

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) is a national body (part of the National Health Service [NHS]) in England, established in 2001 to promote patient safety.

Are you a patient safety officer? Are you engaged in a project that is particularly exciting? Have you solved a difficult problem recently? Is your work posing challenges you never thought you’d face? Have you thought about seeing your ideas in print?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 7 billion tests are run each year in medical laboratories throughout the United States, contributing to more than 70% of all medical decisions (Boone, 2003).

As the buzz around the potential for radio frequency identification (RFID) in healthcare increases, so do the questions related to its practicality and payback. Answers vary because RFID represents an array of technologies, each with its own requirements and value for healthcare.

Two automatic identification technologies, neither “new” in the sense of being recent developments, are vying for acceptance in the healthcare field.

The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP) defines a medication error as “…any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use…

This resource directory provides a listing of companies that offer barcoding and/or RFID technologies to healthcare clients.