Health care system drug events

As increasing numbers of people experience the ill effects of medication use and realize that this is not an inevitable consequence of our health care system, the public outcry for answers will intensify. Medication safety has been the driving force for many health care advances, such as the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide scandal (FD C Act), the European thalidomide tragedy (1962 Kefauver Drug Amendments), and the incidence of adverse drug events in nursing homes (1974 Consultant Pharmacists Law). ... 

Health care systems should develop better systems for monitoring and reporting adverse drug events. 

Over the years the cost of human errors in the U.S. health care system has skyrocketed. The annual national cost of adverse events is about 38 billion, around 17 billion of which is associated with preventable adverse events [5]. Furthermore, the cost of adverse drug events alone in a U.S. hospital is approximately 5.6 million per year about 2.8 million of this amount is associated with preventable adverse drug events [6]. 

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national vaccine safety surveillance program co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). VAERS collects and analyzes information from reports of adverse reactions after immunization. Anyone can report to VAERS, and reports are sent in by vaccine manufacturers, health care providers, and vaccine recipients and their parents or guardians. An example of the VAERS and instructions for completing the form are found in Appendix F. Any clinically significant adverse event that occurs after the administration of any vaccine should be reported. Individuals are encouraged to provide the information on the form even if the individual is uncertain if the event was related to the... 

Detecting the incidence and type of adverse drug events (ADEs) and medication errors is important for improving the quality of health care delivery. Problems include missing dose, wrong dose, frequency, and route errors. The consequence (ADE) of the errors depends on medication and patient factors as described previously. Some of these problems are organisational and related to chart order system and prescribing. 

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