Medication Errors on the Rise – Here’s How to Be Safe
Taking the wrong pills, taking too many, mixing up prescriptions – new research shows that people make more mistakes than ever when it comes to medications.
According to the FDA , about 1.3 million people are injured annually from drug misuse in the United States, but some of these cases are much more serious than others. This study, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology , analyzed data collected by US Poison Control Centers and then counted any serious medication errors that occurred outside of a healthcare setting. The researchers found that the number of life-threatening cases of the disease doubled between 2000 and 2012, reaching 6,855 cases in 2012 alone, and about one-third of cases ended up in hospitalization. Worse yet, most of them could have been easily prevented.
Keep in mind that this dataset only comes from poison control centers, so it doesn’t quite illustrate the severity of the trend. Jay Schauben , former president of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, explains to NPR that not everyone calls a poison control center when a drug error occurs. And Nicole Hodges , lead author of the study, says those numbers are likely to underestimate the true number, and that dangerous medication mistakes that occur at home are likely to be underestimated.
What do these errors look like? Someone may have taken the wrong dosage of the medication. Or someone accidentally took the wrong pill. Other mistakes include not waiting for the second dose, pharmacists dispensing drugs at the wrong concentration, and children taking other people’s drugs (children between the ages of 6 and 12 were more likely to take the wrong drug). All simple human mistakes that can cost someone their life.
Hodges, a researcher at the National Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, suggests installing child locks on their pillboxes and keeping them out of reach and sight. If the child has to take any medication, always help him so that he knows that he is not taking the wrong pills. You can also keep a written journal of when you take or give your medications and their dosage, and avoid using regular kitchen spoons to measure your medications .