Search Results for: blog drug mistakes may harm one out of fifteen children

Working to Reduce Medical Errors

A study from Penn State University took a look at a relatively easy solution that might just help reduce medical errors: standardized labeling. Medication errors are costly, potentially harmful to the patient, and all too commonplace these days. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there are more than one and a half million medication mistakes each year that caues adverse reactions in patients. These mistakes cost doctors, hospitals, and insurers more than three billion dollars annually. Volunteer participants in the Penn State Hershey study tested out a very simple solution to a complex problem: color-coded labels. Anesthesiologists, residents, … Continue reading →

Help Prevent Medication Mix-Ups

There are lots of medications on the market — name brand prescriptions, generic equivalents, and over-the-counter remedies. A recent study from the United States Pharmacopeia, there are more than a thousand drugs that have names that are similar to others. Similar names creates a potential for confusion — the wrong drug (with a similar name) being substituted for the right one. Look at these sound-alikes for example: Were you prescribed Actos (for type 2 diabetes) or Actonel (for osteoporosis)? Were you prescribed Celexa (for depression) or Celebrex (for arthritis)? Were you prescribed Heparin (a blood thinner) or HESpan (to thicken … Continue reading →

Patient, Know Thyself

I know I’ve talked about knowing your medical history before in the Health Blog. Think of it this way — your doctor sees a lot of patients every day/week/month/year. You can’t expect them to remember everything about every person! Doctors and other health care professionals are human. They have good days and bad days and they make mistakes. Knowing your history (including allergies, medications you take, and other stuff like that) can help prevent a mistake from being something serious. Case in point: I got bit by a cat over the weekend at the cats-only boarding facility. Unlike every other … Continue reading →

Drug Mistakes May Harm One out of Fifteen Children

A study from the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality found that drug errors hurt approximately one out of every fifteen hospitalized children. That translates into more than five hundred thousand children harmed by drug errors every year — a number far higher than previous estimates. What kind of drug errors are we talking about? Medicine mix-ups — giving the wrong drug to the wrong patient Accidental overdose — giving too much of a drug to a patient Bad drug reactions Remember what happened to actor Dennis Quaid’s newborn children last year? They accidentally received a drug overdose but eventually … Continue reading →