Improving patient safety by eliminating unsafe abbreviations from medication prescribing.

The hazardous medication-ordering practices in the accompanying table are the focus of a provincial initiative led by the Health Quality Council of Alberta to improve patient safety across the continuum of care. This is not just a prescriber issue--it is a culture of practice issue that is perpetuated in many ways throughout the health-care system, often inadvertently by the myriad of ways health professionals communicate about medication orders.