|
E-mail this page to a friend!
Senior Citizen Health & Medicine
Medication Errors Injure 1.5 Million People, Mostly
Seniors, Every Year
Medication errors are among the most common medical
errors
 July 21, 2006 A report was released yesterday
that should make senior citizens sit up and pay attention. It was a
damning report on the injury to people in the U.S. by medication errors,
which the report says occur at least 1.5 million a year a statistic
the authors say "is sobering." Senior citizens, because they are the
largest consumers of medication, are at the highest risk from these
errors. This is just one of many studies over several years that have
highlighted the frequent errors in the administration of drugs and other
medicines.
| |
Related Stories |
|
| |
CMS Administrator Praises Report on Medication
Errors, Sets Plans for Change
To set standards to ensure consistency, efficiency
in prescribing for Part D
July 21, 2006 Mark McClellan, administrator of
the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, issued a statement
following the release yesterday of the report by the Institute of
Medicine on the excessive death and injury caused by medication errors.
The study was funded by CMS. McClellan outlined steps Medicare will take
to address the problem.
Read more...
Hospital Errors Cost Medicare $9.3 Billion over Three
Years
HealthGrades
patient safety study shows increase in hospital errors, gaps among
state, hospitals best hospitals have 43% fewer errors
April 3, 2006 - Patient safety incidents in
American hospitals grew from 1.18 million to 1.24 million among the 40
million hospitalizations covered under the Medicare program, and
incidents varied widely from state to state, and among the best and
worst hospitals, according to a study released yesterday by HealthGrades,
the leading healthcare ratings company.
Read more...
Watch Drug List if Senior Citizen Being Moved in the
Hospital Mistakes Kill
Too many medication errors occur as patients change care settings
Jan. 26, 2006 Senior citizens and their
caregivers should be alert to this warning of a threat to life that is
occurring in hospitals. Medication errors cause more than 7,000 deaths a
year in U.S. hospitals. Many of these can be prevented if more attention
is paid to the accuracy of medications given to patients as they are
moved from one area of a hospital to another, from supervision of one
healthcare worker to another or to any other new care setting. This
caution flag was waved yesterday by the Joint Commission on
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
Read more...
Safety Tips for Senior Citizens, Caregivers in
Managing Drugs
March 9, 2005 - More than 2.3 million drug-related
errors adversely affect older Americans each year, often resulting in
rush trips to the emergency room, expensive hospitalization and
subsequently, the potential decline of a senior citizens independence.
There are specific precautions that seniors, their adult children and
caregivers can take to prevent mishaps related to prescription use, says
a company that manages prescription drug benefits.
Read more...
Seniors Prone to Drug Errors Finding Help From
Safety System
June 23, 2004 - One
in four seniors age 65 or older sees four or more physicians each year,
and one in three visit four or more pharmacies each year, making patient
data exchange difficult and creating a dangerous medication matrix that
could put people at risk, according to the company who introduced a
safety system last year that they say is helping reduce the risk.
More... 6/23/04*
Bush Signs Patient Bill to Protect Medical
Professionals Who Report Errors
July 29, 2005 President Bush this morning signed
the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 which features
protection for medical professionals who voluntarily report medical
errors by keeping their names private.
Read more...
Drug Name Confusion Can Be Deadly, Says FDA Magazine
July 19, 2005 The following article, Drug Name
Confusion: Preventing Medication Errors, is published in the
July-August issue of the FDA Consumer Magazine. It explains the deadly
threat from confusion in drug names, how they occur and offers tips on
avoiding such errors.
Read more...
Medical-Errors Gap Widens Between Best - Worst
Hospitals
Three-Year Study by HealthGrades Covers 37 Million
Hospitalizations
Cost to Medicare of Patient Safety Incidents: $3
Billion Annually
May 2, 2005 - Patient safety incidents at America's
hospitals increased slightly, but the nation's safest hospitals grew
even safer, resulting in a wider gap in patient safety incident rates
among the nation's best and worst hospitals, according to a new study of
37 million patient records released today by HealthGrades, an
organization that evaluates the quality of hospitals, physicians and
nursing homes for consumers, corporations, hospitals and health plans.
Read more...
New Agency Site Focuses on Preventing Medical
Errors, Patient Safety
April 20, 2005 Most research shows senior
citizens are the most likely to suffer from medical errors and other
patient safety issues. There is now a Website created by the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality that claims to be a national one stop
portal of resources for preventing medical errors and improving safety.
Read more...
New Online Brochure Hopes to Get Patients More
Involved in Protecting Themselves
March 11, 2005 As studies continue to point out
the high rate of medical errors and their devastating affect on millions
of senior citizens, many groups are making an effort to get patients
more involved in protecting themselves. There is a new patient safety
check list being made available on line by the New Jersey Hospital
Associations Quality Institute.
Read more...
Campaign to Stop Deadly Medication Errors Spreads
Outside Hospitals
New brochure on things you can do to prevent medication
mistakes
Jan.
27, 2005 More than 7,000 patients die each year in hospitals due to
medication errors. A new effort is being launched today to spread the word
about the deadly results of medication errors outside of just hospitals. The
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which earlier
started a national campaign urging Americans to "Speak Up" to avoid
medication mistakes, is sending to the nation's Fortune 1000 companies
copies of their latest brochure and poster "Things You Can Do to Prevent
Medication Mistakes."
Read
more...
Read more
on
Health & Medicine |
|
Medication errors are among the most common medical
errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year, says this new
report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies that was
funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The extra medical costs of treating drug-related
injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5
billion a year, and this estimate does not take into account lost wages
and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says.
Studies used in this report indicate that
● 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries
occur each year in hospitals,
● 800,000 occur in long-term care settings, and
● 530,000, roughly, occur just among Medicare recipients in
outpatient clinics.
The committee noted that these are likely
underestimates.
A report in July of 2004 found an average of
195,000 Medicare patients in the U.S. died due to potentially
preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001
and 2002. This was a study of 37 million patient records by
HealthGrades, the healthcare quality company.
| |
Will Julia Roberts Be Playing Role of Medicare Fighter Against
Medical Errors |
|
| |
Will Julia
Roberts soon be playing Erin Brockovich again, this time as a
fighter against medical errors for senior citizens in Medicare.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Brockovich, whose
environmental crusade inspired a hit movie and Oscar for
Roberts, has lent her name as plaintiff in lawsuits against
several California hospitals and convalescent homes. The suits
allege the facilities pocketed millions of taxpayer dollars
while covering up their own mistakes.
The lawsuits allege that healthcare
companies are charging Medicare, the federally funded health
plan for seniors, to treat illnesses they helped cause by
medical error or neglect, according to the June 7 story in the
Times.
In addition to reimbursement for
Medicare, Brockovich and her attorneys could potentially win
millions of dollars if the lawsuits are successful.
"This is what I do," the 45-year-old
Brockovich told the Times. "I am an advocate. It would be as odd
for me to turn down a cause as it would be for Julia Roberts to
not do another movie."
Brockovich is suing on behalf of the
United States under a law that allows citizens to bring
grievances in the government's name. Her attorneys also have
filed lawsuits in New Jersey and Florida using others as
plaintiffs, said attorney James L. Wilkes of Wilkes & McHugh in
Rancho Palos Verdes, one of two law firms driving the nationwide
legal effort.
For the complete story in the L.A. Times
click here. |
|
Another report published last year, also in the
Journal of the American Medical Association, projected nearly 10 adverse
drug events per month for every 100 residents of the long-term care
facilities. The study also concluded that 42 % of all the adverse drug
events were preventable, and 61% of the serious, life-threatening and
fatal adverse events were preventable.
The committee that wrote the latest report
recommended a series of actions for patients, health care organizations,
government agencies, and pharmaceutical companies.
The recommendations include steps to increase
communication and improve interactions between health care professionals
and patients, as well as steps patients should take to protect
themselves.
The report also recommends the creation of new,
consumer-friendly information resources through which patients can
obtain objective, easy-to-understand drug information. In addition, it
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.
"The frequency of medication errors and preventable
adverse drug events is cause for serious concern," said committee
co-chair Linda R. Cronenwett, dean and professor, School of Nursing,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
"We need a comprehensive approach to reducing these
errors that involves not just health care organizations and federal
agencies, but the industry and consumers as well," she said.
Co-chair J. Lyle Bootman, dean and professor,
College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, Tucson, added, "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. The ultimate goal is to achieve the best care and
outcomes for patients each time they take a medication."
| |
More Findings |
|
| |
> Any given week, 4 of 5 U.S. adults
take at least one medication drug, vitamin/mineral or herbal
supplement.
> Almost one third of U.S. adults take at least 5 different
medications.
> At least a quarter of all medication-related injuries are
preventable.
> Hospital patients average ten medication doses per day.
> A hospital patient, using averages, is subject to one
administration error per day.
> Prescribing and administration errors account for about
three-fourths of medication errors.
> In hospitals, errors are common during all steps of the
medication-use process - procuring the drug, prescribing,
dispensing, administering and monitoring the patient's response. |
|
Estimates of Rates and Costs
Medication errors encompass all mistakes involving
prescription drugs, over-the-counter products, vitamins, minerals, or
herbal supplements. Errors are common at every stage, from prescription
and administration of a drug to monitoring of the patient's response,
the committee found.
It estimated that on average, there is at least one
medication error per hospital patient per day, although error rates vary
widely across facilities. Not all errors lead to injury or death, but
the number of preventable injuries that do occur -- the committee
estimated at least 1.5 million each year -- is sobering, the report
says.
There is insufficient data to determine accurately
all the costs associated with medication errors. The conservative
estimate of 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries in hospitals will
result in at least $3.5 billion in extra medical costs this year, the
committee calculated.
A study of outpatient clinics found that
medication-related injuries there resulted in roughly $887 million in
extra medical costs in 2000 -- and the study looked only at injuries
experienced by Medicare recipients, a subset of clinic visitors. None
of these figures take into account lost wages and productivity or other
costs.
Improving the Patient-Provider Partnership
Establishing and maintaining strong partnerships
between health care providers and patients is crucial to reducing
medication errors, the report says. The committee called on consumers
to be active partners in their medication care and on physicians,
nurses, and pharmacists to know and act on patients' medical care
rights.
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.
Health care organizations also should 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. Currently, health care providers typically do not inform the
patient or the patient's guardians about errors unless injury or death
results.
The report also provides consumers with a list of
specific questions to ask health care providers, such as how to take
their medications properly and what to do if side effects occur.
Also included are actions consumers should take,
such as requesting that their providers give them a printed record of
the drugs they have been prescribed. Patients should maintain an
up-to-date list of all medications they use -- including
over-the-counter products and dietary supplements -- and share it with
all their health care providers. This list should also note the reasons
they are taking each product and any drug and food allergies they have.
New and Improved Drug Information Resources
Although consumers can find helpful drug
information online or in the printed materials provided by pharmacies,
this information often is too difficult for many people to understand,
too scattered, or otherwise not consumer-friendly.
The quality of the drug information leaflets that
accompany prescriptions varies widely, and these printouts are typically
written at a college reading level. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) should work with other appropriate groups to
standardize the text and design of medication leaflets to ensure that
they are comprehensible and useful to all consumers.
The committee called on the National Library of
Medicine (NLM) to be the chief agency responsible for online health
resources for consumers; it should create a Web site to serve as a
centralized source of comprehensive, objective, and easy-to-understand
information about drugs for consumers.
In addition, NLM should work with other groups to
evaluate online health information and designate Web sites that provide
reliable information.
The committee also recommended that NLM, FDA, and
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services evaluate ways to build
and fund a national network of telephone helplines to assist people who
may not be able to access or understand printed medication information
because of illiteracy, language barriers, or other obstacles. This
telephone network should also enable consumers to report
medication-related mistakes or problems.
Electronic Prescribing and Other IT Solutions
New computerized systems for prescribing drugs and
other applications of information technology show promise for reducing
the number of drug-related mistakes, the report says. Studies indicate
that paper-based prescribing is associated with high error rates.
Electronic prescribing is safer because it
eliminates problems with handwriting legibility and, when combined with
decision-support tools, automatically alerts prescribers to possible
interactions, allergies, and other potential problems, the committee
found. While it acknowledged that significant regulatory issues and
problems with automated alerts still need to be worked out, the
committee said that by 2008 all health care providers should have plans
in place to write prescriptions electronically.
By 2010 all providers should be using e-prescribing
systems and all pharmacies should be able to receive prescriptions
electronically. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
should take the lead in fostering improvements in IT systems used in
ordering, administering, and monitoring drugs.
All health care provider groups should be actively
monitoring their progress in improving medication safety, the committee
recommended. Monitoring efforts might include computer systems that
detect medication-related problems and periodic audits of prescriptions
filled in community pharmacies.
Drug Naming, Labeling, and Packaging
Confusion caused by similar drug names accounts for
up to 25 percent of all errors reported to the Medication Error
Reporting Program operated cooperatively by U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) and
the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).
In addition, labeling and packaging issues were
cited as the cause of 33 percent of errors, including 30 percent of
fatalities, reported to the program. Drug naming terms should be
standardized as much as possible, and all companies should be required
to use the standardized terms, the report urges.
FDA, AHRQ, and the pharmaceutical industry should
collaborate with USP, ISMP, and other appropriate organizations to
develop a plan to address the problems associated with drug naming,
labeling, and packaging by the end of 2007.
The report also recommends studies to evaluate the
impact of free drug samples on overall medication safety. In general,
there has been growing unease among health care providers and others
about the way free samples are distributed and the resulting lack of
documentation of medication use, as well as the bypassing of
drug-interaction checks and counseling that are integral parts of the
standard prescription process.
The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services. Established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy
of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine provides independent, objective,
evidence-based advice to policymakers, health professionals, the private
sector, and the public.
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
