High-alert medications are drugs that bear a heightened risk of causing significant patient harm when they are used in error.Although mistakes may or may not be more common with these drugs,the consequences of an error with these medications are clearly more devastating to patients. We hope you will use this list to determine which medications require special safeguards to reduce the risk of errors.

This may include strategies like limiting access to these medications,
using auxiliary labels and automated alerts, standardizing the ordering,
preparation, and administration of these products, and employing
automated or independent double checks when necessary. (Note: manual
independent double checks are not always the optimal error reduction
strategy and may not be practical for all of the medications on the list).