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One 5-year study showed that the most common types of medication errors were a wrong dose, a wrong drug or a wrong route of administration
Have you realised that improperly using medications can do more harm than good?
The statistics are revealing:
- Medication errors are estimated to account for at least 7,000 deaths in the United States alone every year.
( Reference : Institute of Medicine website, www.iom.edu ; The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's Control in Managed Care website section on medication errors, www.amcp.org )
- Over 770,000 patients are estimated to be injured because of medication errors every year.
( Reference : Agency for Health Research and Quality, 2001 )
- The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the United States says that at least 1 death occurs per day and 1.3 million people are injured each year due to medication errors.
( Reference : Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website, www.fda.org )
- Several studies point to more than 50% of potential and serious adverse events being associated with injectable medications.
( Reference : Kaushal R, Bates DW, Landrigan C, et al. Medication errors and adverse drug events in pediatric inpatients. JAMA 2001; 285:2114-2120.
Thomas EJ, Brennan TA. Incidence and types of preventable adverse events in elderly patients: population based review of medical records. BMF 2000; 320:741-744. )
- One 5-year study showed that the most common types of medication errors were a wrong dose, a wrong drug or a wrong route of administration.
( Reference : Phillips J, Beam S, Brinker A, Holquist C, Honig P, Lee LY,Pamer C. Retrospective analysis of mortalities associated with medication errors. Am J Health Syst Pharm. Oct 2001. 58(19);1835-41 )
- Medication errors occur in nearly 1 out of every 5 doses given to patients in the typical hospital.
( Reference : Barker KN, Flynn EA, Pepper GA, PhD, Bates DW, Mikeal RL. Medication errors observed in 36 health care facilities. Arch Intern Med 2002;162:1897-1903. )
- Adverse medication events have been reported and are estimated to occur at a rate of around 5% for admissions and discharges from the typical hospital.
( Reference : Classen DC, Pestonik SL, Evans RS, Lloyd JF, Burke JP. Adverse drug events in hospitalized patients. JAMA 1997; 277:301-306.
Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. Incidence of adverse drug reaction in hospitalized patients. JAMA 1998; 279:1200-1205. )
There is no country or organization that we know of that can completely prevent medication problems and they occur all over the world regardless of country, state or city.
- From a national study in Australia, medication errors result in around 3% of all hospital admissions, and up to 30% for those above 75 years of age. Three quarters of these errors are potentially preventable.
( Reference : Runchiman WB, Roughead EE, Semple SJ, Adams RJ. Adverse drug events and medication errors in Australia. Int J Qual Health Care. 2003 Dec; 15 Suppl 1:i49-59 )
- In the Netherlands, adverse drug reactions resulted in more than 12,000 patients being hospitalized in a year. Bleeding, low blood sugar levels and fever the most common types. Of these, 6% were found to be fatal. Greater risk is associated with older age and female gender.
( Reference : van der Hooft CS, Sturkenboom MC, van Grrotheest K, Kingma HJ, Stricker BH. Adverse drug reaction-related hospitalizations: a nationwide study in the Netherlands. Drug Saf. 2006;29(2):161-8 )
- From a survey in Italy, more than 900 patients were admitted to hospital due to adverse drug reactions. Stomach pains and bleeding were common complaints. Risks are associated with female gender, older age, alcohol use and the number of medicines.
( Reference : Onder G, Pedone C, Landi F, Cesari M, Vedova CD, Bernabei R, Gambassi G. Adverse drug reactions as cause of hospital admissions: results from the Italian Group of Pharmacoepidemiology in the Elderly (GIFA). J Am Geratr Soc 2002, 50:1962-68 )
- In a single hospital emergency department in India, adverse drug reactions were found to result in 6% of all admissions and more than half of these were considered to be preventable.
( Reference : Malhotra S, Jain S, Pandhi P. Drug-related visits to the medical emergency department: a prospective study from India. Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2001 Jan;39(1):12-8 )
- A study in France from seven hospital emergency units showed that close to 20% of patients consulted because of an adverse drug event. These are expected to occur more commonly with age and the number of drugs taken. The outcomes are worse in those with an adverse drug event.
( Reference : Queneau P, Trombert B, Carpentier F, Trinh-Duc A, Bannwarth B, Bouget J. Adverse drug effects: a prospective study by Apnet performed in seven emergency care units in France: propositions for preventive measures. Ann Pharm Fr. 2005 Mar;63(2):131-42 )
- Recent information from a hospital in Greece points to more than 12% of admissions being associated with adverse drug reactions. The most common medication-related reason for admission is bleeding. The most common risk factors are age and the number of medicines used.
( Reference : Alexopoulou A, Dourakis SP, Mantzoukis D, Pitsariotis T, Kandyli A, Deutsch M, Archimandritis AJ. Adverse drug reactions as a cause of hospital admissions: a 6-month experience in a single centre in Greece. Eur J Intern Med 2008 Nov;19(7):505-10 )
- A study from a hospital in Switzerland showed that more than 4% of patients were admitted due to an adverse drug event.
( Reference : Hardmeier B, Braunschweig S, Cavallaro M, Roos M, Pauli-Magnus C, Giger M, Meier PJ, Fattinger K. Adverse drug events caused by medication errors in medical inpatients. Swiss Med Wkly. 2004 Nov 13;134(45-46):664-770 )
And these are only the reported statistics from hospitals! Undetected and unreported medication errors are likely to be more andalso more likely to occur in other settings.
It's easy to see just how such errors can arise:
- A missed dose can lead to severe symptoms
- Too little of a medicine and the condition goes untreated
- Too much of a medicine and severe unwanted effects can arise
- Separate medicines can have unnecessary interactions when used together
- An expired medicine or one that is stored wrongly can be ineffective or even dangerous
- An inappropriate route can cause unnecessary pain and ineffectiveness of a medication
- Taking the wrong medicine can be as dangerous as being poisoned
The list goes on and these errors can add up to weigh down on your health, becoming very costly in the process.
Without care, medicationscan end up on the path to hurting your lifestyle, your time, your wallet/purse and worse of all, your health. Does that mean medications should not be taken?
You might think we're against medicines. That's not the case.In fact, we're here to shore up on your safe use of medicines.
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