High Rate of Fatal Medication Errors Among the Elderly

A fourth annual U.S. report on medication errors has shown that 55% of fatal hospital medication errors involved people aged 65 or older. Incorrect administration continued to be responsible for the overall largest number of harmful medication errors (6.2%).

Of 192,477 medication errors reported, more than half were corrected before causing harm to the patient. However, 3,213 errors (1.7%) resulted in patient injury. Of this number, 514 errors required initial or prolonged hospitalization, 47 required interventions to sustain life, and 20 resulted in a patient's death. Compared with 2001 data, a smaller percentage of reported errors resulted in harm to the patient (1.7% vs 2.4%). High-alert medications caused the most severe injury to patients when an error was committed. Three of the medications frequently involved in harmful errors were insulin, heparin, and morphine.

More than 33% of all errors that reached patients involved people over 65, and 55% of all fatal medication errors involved the elderly. When medication errors caused harm to the elderly, 9.6% were prescribing errors. Wrong route and wrong administration were the next most common errors among the elderly. An upsurge in error reporting is helping to identify problem areas and should help prevent future errors. The report was compiled by an anonymous national medication error-reporting database operated by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP, Rockville, MD, USA).

"The report revealed that more than one-third of the medication errors reaching the patient involved a patient aged 65 or older,” said Diane Cousins, R.Ph., vice president of the Center for the Advancement of Patient Safety at USP. "As the senior population continues to increase, USP is calling for hospitals to focus on reducing medication errors among seniors. Seniors and their families need to become more involved in their care.”