- NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - Medication errors, some with potentially life-threatening consequences,
are common in US hospitals, researchers report.
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- Errors such as giving patients the wrong drug dose, delivering
medication at the wrong time, giving patients an unauthorized drug or forgetting
to give patients their medicine occurred in nearly one out of every five
medication doses given in hospitals and nursing facilities included in
the study.
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- Seven percent of these errors, or more than 40 mistakes
per day in a typical 300-patient medical facility, had the potential to
be adverse drug events carrying serious medical consequences. Previous
research has shown that nearly half of all such events involved mistakes
surrounding the administration of drugs, the researchers explain.
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- In the current study, errors described as potential adverse
drug events included giving insulin nearly 3 hours after it was due, or
giving double the ordered dosage of verapamil, a blood pressure lowering
drug.
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- The study findings, published in the September 9th issue
of the Archives of Internal Medicine, underscore the need to revamp the
medication delivery and administration systems of US hospitals, the authors
point out.
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- "The problem of defective medication administration
systems, although varied, is widespread," according to Dr. Kenneth
N. Barker from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, and colleagues.
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- While the study did not investigate possible ways to
improve the delivery of medication, Barker said that automation, robotics
and bar code systems could help reduce errors.
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- "These results support the proposition that the
problems lie with medication systems, and thus systems research is called
for," he told Reuters Health in an interview.
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- The findings are based on observations made at 36 hospitals
and nursing facilities in Colorado and Georgia. A trained research pharmacist
verified all observations.
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- Overall, mistakes were made in 19% of doses given, or
605 of 3,216 doses. The most common error was giving medication at the
wrong time (43% of errors), omitting medication (30%), giving patients
the wrong dose (17%), and giving patients a drug that had not been authorized
(4%).
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- SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine 2002;162:1897-1903.
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