The hospitalized patient is in jeopardy from the electrical devices that surround or are attached to him. He is at a special risk because he is frequently grounded by monitoring devices and his protective skin barrier breached. Poorly designed electrical devices and inadequate or improper grounding of the hospital electrical system or of the equipment add to his danger. The adoption of the following steps will reduce this hazard: (1) Never ground the patient; ground everything else. (2) The building wiring and electrical supply, especially its grounding system should be brought up to modern standards. (3) All new electrical equipment should be evaluated for safety and tested before use. (4) An ongoing electrical preventive maintenance program should be established. Isolation power supplies ("safe power centers") have been proposed to reduce or eliminate these hazards but are not recommended.