A combination of factors, including lack of coordination and knowledge about side effects are responsible for the majority of adverse drug reactions that take place in hospitals every year. In fact, according to a new survey by Swedish researchers, not only are most of these adverse drug reactions entirely preventable, but many of them are life-threatening.

 The results of the study were recently presented at the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s annual conference. Researchers found that adult patients had a 2% chance of adverse event risks for medications, and of these adverse reactions, 51% were preventable. However, when it comes to older patients, more than 70% of adverse events were preventable.

According to the researchers, their findings showed that most adverse drug reactions in hospitals are caused due to lack of coordination between healthcare professionals. Medication errors are some of the most frequent kinds of errors that occur during shift changes, or when more than one medical professional is involved in a case. Additionally, patients can be unaware of the side effects or risks from the use of certain medications. Pharmaceutical companies may not always highlight certain side effects that need to be watched out for carefully. All of these factors increase the risk of adverse drug reactions.

Arizona medical malpractice lawyers also believe that part of the reason for these adverse drug events is the fact that many of them are so common that they can easily be concealed in a hospital environment. Researchers say it is important to create a hospital climate in which such errors are not hidden, or taken for granted. Additionally, the researchers believe that medical professionals need to be encouraged to report adverse drug events to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Arizona medical malpractice attorneys are always especially concerned about child patient safety because of the vulnerability of these young patients. A new study shows that many hospitalized children receive far too many medications, even when there are safety concerns about these drugs.

Researchers analyzed data involving more than 580,000 pediatric patients from 450 hospitals. The researchers found that a large number of children in the hospital received at least five or more drugs during each day they were in the hospital. In some cases, children received as many as 13 different drugs throughout their hospitalization. In a few cases, children who had been in the hospital for about a week received about 35 different drugs. The rarer the condition, the more drugs the child received.

Some of the most common medications administered to children in the hospital were antibiotics, acetaminophen and albuterol. What is even more concerning to Arizona medical malpractice lawyers is that many of these drugs were prescribed to these children for off-label purposes. That means that the drugs were not approved for the purposes for which they were administered.

Doctors are not prevented from prescribing drugs for purposes for which they have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. However, the use of drugs for off-label purposes can be always dangerous, because the FDA has not determined the side effects and complications arising from the use of these medications to treat an unapproved illness.

There were other intriguing findings from the analysis. Researchers found that children's hospitals were likely to give children more drugs than general hospitals. Children aged one and above were also more likely to receive multiple drugs than infants.

The numbers of people being treated for injuries arising out of medication errors has increased by more than 50% over the past few years.  According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in 2004, 1.2 million people became ill or suffered injuries because of medication errors, and that number exploded to 1.9 million by 2008.

Medication errors are some of the most common types of medical errors.  In 2006, the Institute of Medicine issued a report which claimed that medication errors caused an estimated $3.5 billion in costs, including medical care expenses, lost productivity, lost wages and other health-care expenses.  However, the data by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality shows that far from declining, the numbers of such errors is actually increasing.  Besides, the number of people being injured by medication errors could be much higher than is mentioned in the report.  The report only took into consideration those medication errors that resulted in the patient having to be treated in a hospital emergency room. 

There is little analysis of the data.  For instance, Arizona medical malpractice lawyers don’t know how many of these errors were the result of doctors prescribing the wrong dosage, or pharmacists or nurses administering the wrong dose.  Other medication errors possibly involve patients who used the wrong dose or the wrong type of medication at home. 

However, the study does prove that the most common drug causing side effects or injuries among hospital patients were corticosteroids.  Besides, large numbers of Americans are also rushed to hospital emergency rooms every year for injuries from medication errors related to blood thinners, cancer medications, pain relievers, blood pressure drugs and cardiac medications.  People above 65 are much more likely to be rushed to the hospital for medication-related injuries.  One in five medication error emergency cases involved children or teenagers.

A commonly used drug that is used in hundreds of thousands of childbirths around the country to move along labor could actually be increasing the risk of maternal postpartum hemorrhage.  The study was published in the February issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and focused on the common drug, pitocin.  This is a synthetic form of oxytocin, which is produced naturally by the woman's body in order to trigger labor.

The study was conducted by researchers at Duke University.  They found a high link between excessive amounts of the drug used during labor, and severe postpartum hemorrhaging.  Severe bleeding after a delivery is the number one cause of maternal death worldwide.  Approximately 1% of women suffer severe postpartum bleeding.  According to the researchers, they found that women with prolonged infusions of pitocin were at an increased risk of bleeding after delivery.  According to researchers, pitocin is often used to move along labor, but when women receive large doses of pitocin during labor, their bodies were desensitized, and the drug failed to work to stop bleeding from the uterus after delivery.

The wide use of pitocin in American hospitals should concern Arizona medical malpractice attorneys about the risks involved in the indiscriminate and excessive use of this drug.  There is no doubt that the drug has its benefits, but research seems to indicate that excessive use does more harm than good.  In fact, a competent gynecologist will advocate using lower doses of the drug during labor to avoid postpartum competitions like hemorrhaging.

The best way to prevent complications arising from the use of the drug is to minimize your need for the drug.  For instance, avoid elective delivery when there is no medical reason for one.  Stay active during labor - keep moving around and avoid lying down in a single place. 

Prescription drug errors injure more than 1.5 million patients in the US every year.  Most of these errors are entirely preventable, and occur mainly because two medications sound alike, or because pharmacists misread dosages.  There is much that patients can do to avoid suffering injuries caused by prescription errors.

Arizona medical malpractice lawyers believe the best thing you could do to reduce your chances of a prescription error is to make sure you know the name of the medication you’ve been prescribed, and the dosage.  If you're unable to read the doctor's prescription, it’s highly likely that a pharmacist won't be able to either.  Most errors occur because pharmacists misread a prescription.  That happens when medications have similar names.  These names look similar when they are written on a prescription, or sound similar when they are read out in the pharmacy.  In any case, a mix-up can have lethal consequences.

Before you leave the doctor’s office, make sure that you understand the dosage, side effects of medication, the mode of usage (before or after meals) and other important details that can impact the way you ingest the medication.

Follow your doctor's instructions carefully.

If you want your prescription translated into English, you can get the pharmacist to translate it for you.  Most pharmacies will have translation software, although the accuracy of these is debatable.  If you need your prescriptions, take someone who speaks English along with you.

Before you leave the pharmacy, make sure that you have the right medication.  Check the refill bottle and the label.  Do they look the same as the last time you had a refill?  If you have doubts, ask questions.

Try to use the same pharmacy as much as possible for your medication needs.  This way, you may be able to avoid errors because the pharmacy database keeps track of errors.