 |
|
COMMENTS AND OPINIONS
A Closer Look at Fatal Medication Errors
Tsung-Hsueh Lu, MD, MPH
|
|
| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
|
|
|
Phillips et al1 revealed that the fatal medication error (FME) death rate increased by 360% from 1983 to 2004 in the United States. The domestic FME death rate, when the FME occurred in combination with alcohol and/or street drug use, showed a 3196% increase. Bizarrely, the increase was most prominent in middle-aged individuals, and no increase was found among children and elderly individuals, the 2 most vulnerable groups. The authors attributed the increase to the recent changes in medical care that have shifted the location in which many medications are consumed from clinical to domestic settings. I completely agree that the increase in FMEs is an important emerging public health problem in the United States, but to attribute this increase to changes in the medical care system seems to be detracting somewhat from the real problem.
I examined the same data the authors used and found . . . [Full Text of this Article]
AUTHOR INFORMATION
 CiteULike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati  Twitter
What's this?
RELATED ARTICLE
A Steep Increase in Domestic Fatal Medication Errors With Use of Alcohol and/or Street Drugs
David P. Phillips, Gwendolyn E. C. Barker, and Megan M. Eguchi
Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(14):1561-1566.
ABSTRACT
| FULL TEXT
RELATED LETTER
A Closer Look at Fatal Medication Errors—Reply
David P. Phillips and Gwendolyn E. C. Barker
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(7):718-719.
EXTRACT
| FULL TEXT
|
