In events involving insulin reported to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, more than half led to situations in which a patient may have or actually received the wrong dose or no dose of insulin, which could lead to difficulties in glycemic control. Strategies to address these problems include limiting the variety of insulin products, developing standardized protocols and a standardized prescription format, avoiding the use of abbreviations, and requiring an independent double check of all doses before dispensing and administering intravenous insulin.

​Pennsylvania healthcare facilities submitted 2,685 event reports to the Authority from January 2008 to June 6, 2009, that mentioned medication errors involving the use of insulin products.

The predominant medication error event types associated with insulin (see Table) were drug omission (24.7%) followed by wrong drug (13.9%) and wrong dose/overdosage (13%).