Medication safety

June 5, 4:20 PMSan Diego Wellness ExaminerKim Chartrand

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Medication safety starts at home

Medication errors kill 44,000-98,000 people in the U.S. annually, more than the number of deaths from breast cancer or AIDS. Moreover, 1.3 million people are injured each year. The financial cost of these deaths and injuries (not to mention the emotional cost) is more than $177 billion each year. Perhaps avoiding medication errors would be a good place to start in controlling medical costs, since all of these injuries, deaths, and attendant costs are avoidable.

More people die from medication error at home than in the hospital according to a review of 50 million death certificates (that’s 1 person in every 131. Hospital deaths from medication errors are 1 in 854 patients). Interestingly, most people believe they are safe from medication errors at home or in the hospital even though statistics show you are more likely to be affected by this than by being injured in the workplace.

Whether inpatient or outpatient, the most common types of medication error include: The wrong dose (41% of fatalities), the wrong drug (19%) in the wrong way (9.5%). The most common causes of the errors came from not understanding the drug’s effects, side effects, or potential interactions with other drugs (44%--like what happened in Heath Ledger’s death) and mis-communication contributed to nearly 16% of deaths. What is not accounted for is the role stress and distraction plays in these statistics.

Steps to ensure safety:

• Ask questions. If the drug name, dosage, timing or the pills look different from what you expect, talk to the pharmacist.

• Do you take the medication with food? Do you need to avoid a certain food when taking the medicine (like grapefruit or dairy)?

• What do you do if you miss a dose?

• Read about the side effects.

• Ask if it is safe to use alcohol, herbal preparations, antacids or sedatives while taking the drug. Drug interactions cause a large number of medication errors. If you take a drug containing acetaminophen do not take more acetaminophen or Tylenol. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for other suggestions.

• Can your medication be crushed or split? (If it is an extended release medication the answer is NO; check with your doctor or pharmacist for all other medications).

• .How should this medication be stored? Some medications are affected by light, movement, humidity and time

• Are there any restrictions to working, driving or using machinery while on this medication?

• What is the expiration date? Don’t take expired drugs. Some drugs are effective after the expiration date but some drugs, such as nitroglycerin, have a very specific shelf life and are not effective at all past that date.

• If your medication is expired, don’t flush it down the toilet! Take advantage of pharmacy “take back” programs. If your community doesn’t have this, remove the medication from the original container and mix the medication with coffee grounds or kitty litter and place in a non descript can, jar, or sealable plastic bag and throw into the trash making sure pets and children cannot access it.