Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, says a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies.
According to The Preventing Medication Errors report, released by the IOM on July 20, these errors harm at least 1.5 million people annually, and the extra medical costs of treating drug-related injuries occurring in hospitals conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year. This estimate does not take into account lost wages and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says.
The report recommends specific steps that physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals should take to ensure that their patients are fully informed about their drug regimens and to minimize opportunities for mistakes to occur. It also suggests that health care organizations make it a standard procedure to inform patients about clinically significant medication errors made in their care, whether the mistakes lead to harm or not.
The report calls on patients to be active partners in their medication care and on physicians, nurses and pharmacists to know and act on patients’ medical care rights. It provides patients with a list of specific questions they should ask health care providers and actions they should take to protect themselves. It also urges patients to maintain an up-to-date list of all prescription medications, over-the-counter products and dietary supplements they use and share it with all their health care providers. The list should note why they are taking each product and any drug and food allergies they have.
The Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors, which wrote the report, recommends the creation of consumer-friendly information resources through which patients can obtain objective, easy-to-understand drug information. It also calls for all prescriptions to be written electronically by 2010 and suggests ways to improve the naming, labeling and packaging of drugs to reduce confusion and prevent errors.
"Our recommendations boil down to ensuring that consumers are fully informed about how to take medications safely and achieve the desired results, and that health care providers have the tools and data necessary to prescribe, dispense, and administer drugs as safely as possible and to monitor for problems," said J. Lyle Bootman, PhD, co-chair, Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors, and dean and professor, College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, Tucson. "The ultimate goal is to achieve the best care and outcomes for patients each time they take a medication."
