"Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. The extra medical costs of treating drug-related injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year, and this estimate does not take into account lost wages and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says."
Wow.
3.5 billion dollars a year? I bet it's way more than that.
Studies indicate that 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries occur each year in hospitals. Another 800,000 occur in long-term care settings, and roughly 530,000 occur just among Medicare recipients in outpatient clinics. The committee noted that these are likely underestimates.
Amazing. Almost 2 million a year.
I agree that the numbers likely represent gross underestimates. The problem, as I see it, is not preventable, nor fixable in the current fragmented environment of health care delivery. Breaking down the problem reveals so many in congruent variables that the current delivery of health care is wide open to errors.