Study on Medication Errors

A recently published study of hospital patients on a cardiovascular floor states that for every 100 admissions there were 24 medication errors. These findings were based on an analysis of data from a pharmacist database created at Duke University Medical Center that reported all pharmacist interventions on cardiology wards. Of the nearly 15,000 interventions documented from 1995 to 2000, more than 4,700 involved medication errors. Thirty-six percent of the errors involved giving the patient the wrong drug and 35% involved dosing errors. The study was published in the June 23, 2003 isse of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Medication errors are an all too frequent occurrence in America’s hospitals. Causes of medication errors include such simple and preventable mistakes as illegible handwriting and mixing up similar sounding names of drugs. For more information on medication errors, visit the FDA’s Medication Errors web site at www.fda.gov/drug/MedErrors/default.htm or the web site of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices at www.ismp.org.