Adverse drug reactions send many patients to ER

To All,
Maybe the drug industry needs to be regulated?
Sure glad that herbals, botanicals, vitamins and minerals didn’t do this.
1.7 million hospitalizations in Canada per year due to drug reactions.

Regards,
Anthony Stephan

More than 1 in 9 emergency room visits are due to medication-related problems, many of which are preventable, a new study says.

In a study of more than 1,000 patients who visited Vancouver General Hospital's emergency department, researchers found that 12 per cent of the visits were for drug-related complications. The study also found that 68 per cent of the visits were preventable.

Of the drug-related emergency room visits, the researchers found that:

• More than 39 per cent were due to adverse reactions.
• Almost 28 per cent were due to patients taking medication incorrectly or not at all.
• More than 11 per cent were due to taking ineffective, or incorrect, drugs.

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Abstract:

Incidence, severity and preventability of medication-related visits to the emergency department: a prospective study

Peter J. Zed PharmD, Riyad B. Abu-Laban MD MHSc, Robert M. Balen PharmD, Peter S. Loewen PharmD, Corinne M. Hohl MD, Jeffrey R. Brubacher MD MSc, Kerry Wilbur PharmD, Matthew O. Wiens BSc(Pharm), Leslie J. Samoy BSc(Pharm), Katie Lacaria BSc(Pharm), Roy A. Purssell MD

Background: Medication-related visits to the emergency department are an important but poorly understood phenomenon. We sought to evaluate the frequency, severity and preventability of drug-related visits to the emergency department.

Methods: We performed a prospective observational study of randomly selected adults presenting to the emergency department over a 12-week period. Emergency department visits were identified as drug-related on the basis of assessment by a pharmacist research assistant and an emergency physician; discrepancies were adjudicated by 2 independent reviewers.

Results: Among the 1017 patients included in the study, the emergency department visit was identified as drug-related for 122 patients (12.0%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 10.1%-14.2%); of these, 83 visits (68.0%, 95% CI 59.0%-76.2%) were deemed preventable. Severity was classified as mild in 15.6% of the 122 cases, moderate in 74.6% and severe in 9.8%. The most common reasons for drug-related visits were adverse drug reactions (39.3%), nonadherence (27.9%) and use of the wrong or suboptimal drug (11.5%). The probability of admission was significantly higher among patients who had a drugrelated visit than among those whose visit was not drug-related (OR 2.18, 95% CI 1.46-3.27, p < p =" 0.06).">

Interpretation: More than 1 in 9 emergency department visits are due to drug-related adverse events, a potentially preventable problem in our health care system.