Standardize 4 Safety at Midyear: What to See, How to Participate

ASHP's Standardize 4 Safety initiative aims to establish standardized concentrations for intravenous and oral liquid medications to reduce errors.

ASHP’s Standardize 4 Safety (S4S) initiative is a national, interprofessional effort to standardize medication concentrations to reduce errors. Initially funded by the Food and Drug Administration’s Safe Use Initiative, S4S establishes standardized concentrations for intravenous and oral liquid medications for patients of all ages in settings ranging from hospital to home. Publication of the lists is only the first step; implementation of these standardized concentrations across care settings is the real goal.

The Midyear Clinical Meeting & Exhibition offers opportunities for attendees to learn about S4S progress and execution and to spread the word and assist with implementation efforts. Today, ASHP Director of Medication Safety and Quality Mary Ann Kliethermes will present an S4S session as part of a pre-meeting symposium on IV medication safety provided by ASHP and supported by an educational grant from Baxter Healthcare Corporation. The session, Raising Safety for Our Patients: A Standardize 4 Safety Update, will take place Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 8 a.m. and will feature Kliethermes along with University of California, San Francisco, Medication Safety Officer Katayoon Kathy Gomeshi, and Bainbridge Health Chief Clinical Officer Sean O’Neill. They will be discussing how organizations can develop a targeted implementation strategy and realign organizational standards based on aggregated data.

To learn more about the S4S initiative, download the published standard concentration lists and view a series of short recorded webinars on different aspects of the initiative, including how the lists are evaluated and updated, implementation challenges, and strategies for adoption of the standards. To take the next step and see how closely aligned your organization’s medication concentrations may already be with the standards, visit our interactive checklist to walk through your choice of medication standards lists for comparison to what you use daily at your practice setting.