The Human Cost of Medical Errors
More than Simply Monetary Value, Mistakes Could Cost You Your Life
An increasingly burdened health care system, the explosion in use of herbal supplements, untold drug interactions and mistakes in treatment can be fatal.
Medical errors and adverse drug related events are far more commonplace than many people realize. The Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences has reported that medical errors in the hospital setting alone kill more people in the United States each year than do motor vehicle accidents. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that as many as 700,000 emergency room visits occur each year in the US because of adverse drug related events and that 120,000 of these patients need to be admitted to the hospital for further treatment.
How Could These Errors Happen
It’s late; you take an ill family member to the emergency room. The initial examination and diagnostic testing includes the collection of blood and urine samples. The emergency room is very busy that night and someone forgets to label the samples as they are being collected from your family member and another patient’s name ends up on them. The wrong treatments are begun, for not one but two people.
An old college friend is visiting from out of town. They develop a cough and cold. You go to the local market or pharmacy and buy an over the counter cold remedy that you have used many times before. You don’t realize that your friend is on a certain type of high blood pressure medication. They take the cold remedy and their blood pressure rises dangerously.
How Can You Protect Yourself
You certainly can’t be expected to know all of the possible interactions with a drug that you are taking, can you? Of course not, but there is other knowledge that is just as important. That is the knowledge about yourself that you can provide to healthcare professionals that are treating you, and the information about medications that they should tell you.
No one is a mind reader; your family physician may know what prescription medications you are taking but not that you have started taking an herbal supplement. When you ask a local pharmacist to recommend an over the counter remedy for a sinus headache, they may not know that you are taking a blood thinner which could potentially interact.
Be Proactive to Reduce the Risk
Keep the following information in mind and readily available for others when it comes time to be seen at the hospital, in your physician’s office, at a walk-in medical clinic:
1) Always have a list of all the medications that you are taking, both prescription and over the counter.
2) Always have a list of any herbal supplements or home remedies that you are using.
3) Know what allergies you have already experienced.
4) Ask your physician what medications you are being given, why they are being used, and whether they have interactions or side effects that you should be aware of.
5) If you need to give a blood sample, urine sample or other type of sample make certain that it is being collected into a container that is already labeled with your name.
6) Ask your pharmacist to tell you about the prescription that they just filled for you.
7) Take nothing for granted, if someone is upset by you asking a question; ask to be seen by someone else.
These simple, yet critical pieces of information can not only minimize errors, they could save your life.
