Intensive care drug errors

March 13, 2009

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Intravenous literature: The BBC news website reports “Errors in the administration of injected medication in intensive care units occur frequently, a study across 27 countries suggests. Austrian researchers collected data on more than 1,300 patients, 200 of them in the UK, over a 24-hour period. Of the 441 patients affected, seven suffered permanent harm and five died partly because of the error, the British Medical Journal reported”.

The report continues “Medical staff often cited stress and tiredness as contributing factors. Data was collected by researchers from Rudolfstiftung Hospital from a total of 113 intensive care units, of which 17 were in the UK. Nearly half of the affected patients suffered more than one mistake during the period covered. The most frequent errors were related to the wrong time of administration and missing doses altogether”.

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