[Reader-list] Wrong medicine harms 1.5 m in US

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1794342.cms

Wrong medicine harms 1.5 m in US

  WASHINGTON: Medication errors harm 1.5 million people and kill  
several thousand each year in the US, costing the nation at least  
$3.5 billion annually, the Institute of Medicine concluded in a  
report released on Thursday.

Drug errors are so widespread that hospital patients should expect to  
suffer one every day they remain hospitalised, although error rates  
vary by hospital and most do not lead to injury, the report concluded.

The report, Preventing Medication Errors, cited the death of Betsy  
Lehman, a 39-year-old mother of two and a health reporter for The  
Boston Globe, as a classic fatal drug mix-up.

Lehman died in 1993 after a doctor mistakenly gave her four times the  
appropriate dose of a toxic drug to treat her breast cancer.

Recommendations to correct these problems include systemic changes  
like electronic prescribing and tips for patients to carry complete  
listings of their prescriptions to every doctor's visit, the report  
said.

The incidence of medication errors was surprising even to us, said J  
Lyle Bootman, dean of the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy.

The report is the fourth in a series done by the institute, the  
nation's most prestigious medical advisory organisation.

The first report, To Err Is Human, was released in 1999 and caused a  
sensation when it estimated that medical errors of all sorts led to  
as many as 98,000 deaths each year -more than was caused by highway  
accidents and breast cancer combined.

After the first report, health officials and hospital groups pledged  
reforms, but many of the most important efforts have been slow to  
take hold.

Drug computer-entry systems, which are supposed to ensure hospital  
patients get the right drugs at the right dose, are used in just 6%  
of the nation's hospitals, said Charles B Inlander, president of the  
People's Medical Society, a

consumer advocacy group, and an author of the report released  
Thursday. Electronic medical records can help ensure patients do not  
receive toxic drug combinations. The 1999 report urged widespread  
adoption of these systems.

Thursday's report called for all prescriptions to be written  
electronically by 2010. Just 3% of hospitals have electronic patient  
records and few doctors prescribe drugs electronically.

NYT News Service