Safety of the Patient from the Medication

Abstract

Currently, more than 7% of admissions to acute care hospitals are related with AEMs (adverse events to medications). AEMs are the sixth cause of death, causing a cost of over $5.6 million dollars (USD) per hospital per year. There is an estimate that between 19% and 23% of hospitalized patients will have an adverse effect within the first 30 days after being discharged, 14.3% will be re-admitted and 70% of these events will be related to a medication prescription. Fortunately, at least 58% of these AEMs are preventable, since they result from a lack of information on the medication, prescription and dosage errors and from the abuse and underuse of the same. Polymedicated patients, especially the elderly with multiple pathologies and/or chronic patients that need to be admitted into the hospital more frequently, usually to internal medicine, neurology, psychiatry, rehabilitation and intensive care, are precisely the most liable to suffer from medication errors. It must be the objective to aim for the increase in the patient safety standards when it comes to medications.