By Henrylito D. Tacio
“Medicines are powerful tools for protecting health. But medicines that are wrongly prescribed, taken incorrectly or are of poor quality, can cause serious harm,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) during World Patient Safety Day which was observed last September 17. “Nobody should be harmed while seeking care.”
Statistics from the United Nations health agency said 134 million adverse events occur every year in hospitals in low- and middle-income countries due to unsafe care, resulting in 2.6 million deaths.
Around the world, as many as 4 in 10 patients are harmed in primary and outpatient health care. “Up to 80% of harm is preventable,” the WHO pointed out.
The most detrimental errors are related to diagnosis, prescription and the use of medicines.
“Globally, half of all preventable harm in medical care is medication related, a quarter of which is severe or life-threatening,” the WHO deplored in a statement.
So much so that during the World Patient Safety Day, the WHO is emphasizing the global burden of medication harm. In fact, this year’s theme is: Medication Without Harm. It aims to reduce avoidable medication-related harm around the world.
Studies have shown unsafe medication practices and medication errors are one of the main causes of injury and avoidable harm in health-care systems across the world. The global cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at US$42 billion annually.
Medication errors happen due to systemic issues and/or human factors such as fatigue, poor environmental conditions or staff shortages which affect prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, administration and monitoring practices. “These errors can result in severe harm, disability and even death,” the WHO said.
As a response to these medication errors, the WHO is advocating for urgent improvement in strategies to reduce medication-related harm in key risk areas.
Evidence has shown that more than half of all medication harm occurs at the stage when medicines are prescribed and when they are being taken by patients due to inadequate monitoring.
“The highest risk category for medication-related harm is antibiotics, but medicines such as sedatives, anti-inflammatories and heart and blood pressure medication also pose significant risks,” the WHO said.
The World Patient Safety Day was established by the World Health Assembly in 2019. Patient safety is defined as “a health care discipline that emerged with the evolving complexity in health care systems and the resulting rise of patient harm in health care facilities.”
Every year, millions of patients suffer injuries or die because of unsafe and poor-quality health care. Aside from medication errors, other patient safety situations causing most concern, according to the WHO, are as follows:
Health care-associated infections: These happen in 7 and 10 out of every 100 hospitalized patients in high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries, respectively.
Unsafe surgical care procedures: These cause complications in up to 25% of patients. Almost 7 million surgical patients suffer significant complications annually, one million of whom die during or immediately following surgery.
Unsafe injection practices: In health care settings, these practices can transmit infections, including HIV and hepatitis B and C, and pose direct danger to patients and health care workers; they account for a burden of harm estimated at 9.2 million years of life lost to disability and death worldwide.
Diagnostic errors: These occur in about 5% of adults in outpatient care settings, more than half of which have the potential to cause severe harm. Most people will suffer a diagnostic error in their lifetime.
Unsafe transfusion practices: These expose patients to the risk of adverse transfusion reactions and the transmission of infections.
Radiation errors: These involve overexposure to radiation and cases of wrong-patient and wrong-site identification. A review of published data on safety in radiotherapy estimates that overall incidence of errors is around 15 per 10,000 treatment courses.
Sepsis: This is frequently not diagnosed early enough to save a patient’s life. Because these infections are often resistant to antibiotics, they can rapidly lead to deteriorating clinical conditions, affecting an estimated 31 million people globally and causing over 5 million deaths annually.
Venous thromboembolism (blood clots): This is one of the most common and preventable causes of patient harm, contributing to one third of the complications attributed to hospitalization. – ###
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