Profession
Errors not leading reason for adverse drug events
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted May 14, 2007
The overwhelming majority of adverse drug events do not result from medication errors, according to an April Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality report. About 90% of the 1.2 million adverse drug events the U.S. Health and Human Services agency studied were side effects of properly administered medications. Only 8.6% of adverse events were caused by wrong-drug, wrong-dose errors or by patients improperly taking the medication before entering the hospital, according to the report based on 2004 data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's Nationwide Inpatient Sample.
Still, more than 100,000 drug errors occur each year, the AHRQ report said. The average cost of treating a hospital inpatient who had an adverse drug event is $10,100, 33% greater than the $7,600 price tag for patients who did not experience an adverse event.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/05/14/prbf0514.htm.
