Table 1. Characteristics of studies and quality indicator sets.

Author(s), Year, Country, Reference	Population and setting	Number of indicators: Total and per Type	Indicator
QRC Advisor, 1995, United States, [22]	Nursing indicators for the acute care setting	Total: 1
		Structure:-
		Process:-
		Outcome: 1	Medication error rate
McLoughling et al, 2006, various countries, [21]	Patient safety indicators for OECD countries: Australia, Canada, the EU, Portugal, Spain and the United States	Total: 1
		Structure: -
		Process: -
		Outcome: 1	Medication error
NSW TAG, 2007, Australia, [20]	Indicators for quality use in medicines in Australian hospitals	Total: 5
		Structure: 1	Availability of concentrated potassium outside pharmacy
		Process: 4	Antibiotic therapy for surgical patients
			Postoperative pain management
			Adverse drug reaction
			Chemotherapy protocol
		Outcome:-
Nigam et al, 2008, Canada, [19]	Medication safety indicators for both inpatient and outpatient settings in Canada.	Total: 5
		Structure: -
		Process: 5	Administering protocols for high alert prescription medications
			Verification of high alert prescriptions
			Machine readable coding systems for administration
			Differentiation of high alert prescription medication
			Monitoring and reducing Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) by assigning pharmacists on round
		Outcome:-
Cheng et al, 2010,Canada, [18]	Medication safety indicators for public reporting in Canada.	Total: 10
		Structure: 5	Top 10 medications
			Concentrated electrolytes
			Narcotic safety
			Incident reporting and analysis
			Prospective medication safety analysis
		Process: 2	Antibiotic prophylaxis
			Venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention
		Outcome: 3	Medication incident types, harm or death incidents by type of error
			Medication incident rates, harm/death incidents per days of patient care
			Deaths associated with medication incidents