Medication Errors

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/09/heparin.babies/index.html

Today I read the above article on CNN and it really bothered me. I work with a lot of data around  mistakes in medication. Did you know that there were nearly 900,000 cases of confirmed medication errors in hospitals last year and that 28-95 percent were because of problems stemming from  errors in computerized monitoring systems (http://www.cardinal.com/us/en/providers/products/pyxis/products/anesthesiaSystem/index.asp). On average, injuries from medication errors cost $5.5 million per hosptial. The institute of Healthcare Improvement ran a program in fiscal 2007 to save 100,000 lives through a combination of computerized medication and medication reconciliation(chart review). 31,000 hospitals in the US participated and statistically saved 122,000 lives through improved process and something called computerized physician order entry. I reviewed a number of cases where physician orders were mis-comunicated to the person dispensing the drug(pharmacy, nurse, etc). It’s really scary to know how fragile the system is with regard to medication. I’m not sure, but I think medication problems pose the single largest ancillary threat to a patient when in a hospital above infection and surgical error. The only thing I can recomend to folks is to ask to see your “chart” and every medication “order” frequently. A congressional law called HIPPA requires all healthcare providers to make this information available to patients if requested. Unfortunatly, they don’t require it to be readable…. that’s another topic I’ll post about later.