To Paramedics USA: Welcome to CHECK CLIP
Medical Errors Statistics:
| • | Medication errors kill 7,000 Americans each year 1 |
| • | Medication errors cost up to $136 billion annually 2 |
| • | Risk of dying in an airplane: 1 to 10 million 3 |
| • | Risk of dying in a hospital: 1 to 300 3 |
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Posters:
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Articles of Interest:
| • | Wake-up call--standardization is crucial to eliminating medication errors
Estimates of medication errors suggest that between 770,000 and two million hospitalized patients experience an adverse drug event (ADE) annually, and 140,000 patients actually may die from ADEs.
Beyea, Suzanne C. AORN Journal: May 2001 Research Corner. |
| • | Reducing medication errors through naming, labeling, and packaging
Errors due to look-alike or sound-alike medication names are common in the United States, and are responsible for thousands of deaths and millions of dollars in cost each year. Up to 25% of all medication errors are attributed to name confusion, and 33% to packaging and/or labeling confusion. Thousands of medication name pairs have been confused based on similar appearances or sounds when written or spoken, or have been identified as having the potential for confusion. Systems and recommendations have been developed that may reduce the occurrence of such errors.
Berman A, J Med Syst, Vol 28, 2004. |
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References
1. J A Johnson, J L Bootman, "Drug-related morbidity and mortality and the economic impact of pharmaceutical care." American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy 54 (March 1, 1997) 554-558.
2. Institute of Medicine. To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000).
3. Quote by Liam Donaldson, Chair of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) World Alliance for Patient Safety. "Hospitals 'more dangerous' than air travel." Australian Broadcasting Corporation. November 2005.
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