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One Third of Drug Errors in Elderly Are Preventable

A report given on March 24, 2002 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics in Atlanta, Georgia says that one third of all medication errors that happen with elderly patients are preventable.

The researchers collected data on 27,500 patients over the age of 65. They found an error rate of more than 4%, or 1,202 medication errors, by examining such things as doctor, clinic and emergency room notes.

Researchers found that the most errors occurred in emergency room situations. These errors primarily came from mixing blood-thinners such as warfarin with other drugs. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (commonly known as NSAIDS and available over-the-counter) were also identified as a major problem contributing to errors.

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