Educational interventions to reduce use of unsafe abbreviations.

Purpose: Educational interventions to reduce the use of abbreviations and dosage designations that were deemed unsafe at a level 1 trauma center are described.

Summary: Strategies to reduce the use of unsafe abbreviations at Detroit Receiving Hospital were studied. Six abbreviations and dosage designations were deemed as unsafe by the site's medication-use and patient medical safety committees: (1) U for units, (2) microg for microgram, (3) TIW for three times a week, (4) the degree symbol for hour, (5) trailing zeros after a decimal point, and (6) the lack of leading zeros before a decimal point.