Modern medication can alleviate pain, cure infectious diseases, and prevent complications from chronic diseases. Modern medications are also capable of causing harm if not properly taken.
There a number of precautions patients can undergo to make certain they receive the most therapeutic benefit from their prescription medications with the least risk of harm. When someone has been harmed by a prescription medication, it is called an Adverse Drug Event.
How you take medication matters.
It is estimated there are more than 700,000 visits to emergency medical departments for adverse drug events each year in the United States. Nearly 120,000 of these patients need to be hospitalized for further treatment. This is an important patient safety problem because many of these adverse drug events could have been prevented.1
Pharmacists play an important role in preventing medication errors. To make sure you use medicines safely and effectively, ASHP recommends that you:
- Keep a list of all medications that you take (prescribed drugs, nonprescription medicines, herbal supplements, home remedies, and medical foods) and medicines that you cannot take due to allergic reactions, and share those with your doctor or pharmacist.
- Tell your health care provider how you actually take your medication, especially if this is different from the originally prescribed directions.
- Learn the names of the drug products that are prescribed and given to you, as well as their dosage strength and schedules.
- Ask if you should avoid certain foods, beverages, other medicines, or activities while you are taking the drug.
- Ask for any written information available on the drug product.
- Question anything you don't understand or that doesn't seem right. Be especially alert to unexpected changes, such as receiving a prescription refill that seems to have a different strength or appearance from your original prescription.
- Show that you understand how to use your medication by repeating information about your prescription back to your doctor or pharmacist.
- If you're too ill to follow these suggestions, ask a friend or relative to help.
- Remember that when you're in a hospital or health system, you can always ask to speak to the pharmacist if you have questions about your treatment or medications.
What can patients do? Keep all medicines stored securely, in their original packaging, and out of the reach of children. Patients should also make sure they are taking the proper medication, in the proper dose, at the prescribed dosage interval.
Young Children: Children under 5 years of age are twice as likely to be taken to emergency medical departments for adverse drug events than older children (nearly 98,000 emergency visits each year). Most of these emergency visits are due to young children finding and eating or drinking medicines on their own, without adult supervision.
Older Adults: Older adults (65 years or older) are also twice as likely as other age demographics to visit emergency departments for adverse drug events (over 177,000 emergency visits each year). Older adults are nearly seven times more likely to be hospitalized after an emergency visit. Most of these hospitalizations are due to certain types of medications that require more careful monitoring to prevent further problems from occurring.
Common drugs that can require monitoring are blood thinners (e.g., warfarin), diabetes medications (e.g., insulin), seizure medications (e.g., phenytoin), and digoxin (a heart medicine). 2
- 1. Daniel Budnitz, M.D. M.P.H., medical office,division of health-care and quality
promorstion, National Center for Infectious Diseases, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta.
- 2. Serena Gordon. Home Medication Use Sends 700,000 to ER Annually. HealthDay 2006.
