Medication Errors Hit 1.5 Million Americans Annually

As many as 1.5 million Americans suffer illness, injury or death each year because of mistakes made in prescribing, dispensing and taking prescription drugs, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine.

The IOM report says medication errors are so common in hospitals that, statistically, a patient will be subjected to a medication error each day of their stay.

While the study found that data on the costs associated with medication errors is limited, one study estimates the yearly cost in the hospital setting alone at $3.5 billion. Another study estimates the annual cost for Medicare beneficiaries in an outpatient setting at $887 million.

To reduce medication errors, IOM recommends:

• improving communication between patients and providers,

• enhancing the resources to support consumer-oriented drug information and medication self-management,

• increasing access to patient information by clinicians and consumers,

• improving drug product naming, labeling, and packaging,

• establishing standards for drug-related health information technologies, and

• providing incentives for the adoption of practices and technologies that reduce medication errors

.”I appreciate this comprehensive report from the Institute of Medicine,” said Senator. Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance. “While our healthcare system is the envy of the world in many ways, clearly there is room for improvement. This report outlines an ambitious agenda for increasing the safety of the medication use process.”

The report recommends that the Food and Drug Administration and others develop guidelines to make drug labels less cluttered and confusing. Grassley said action on that point should come sooner rather than later.

“Of particular interest to me as the chair of the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicare, is the Institute of Medicine’s assertion that almost nothing is known about the benefits and risks of medications for people over age 80 and those taking medications for multiple conditions,” Grassley said.

Addressing this point, the report calls for an increase in clinical trial studies as well as giving access to trial data to patients, providers, health insurers, researchers, and regulators. The report also concluded that many medication errors could be avoided if doctors adopted electronic prescriptions, hospitals instituted a standard barcode system for identifying drugs, and if patients were better educated about the drugs they were taking.

The IOM report was mandated by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. The Institute of Medicine is a member of the National Academies, which was formed to give advice to the federal government and public on medical and technological matters. Other members are the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Research Council.