Educate Patients about Dangerous Drug Interactions

• 2/11/2010
• Author: Jim Parker
• Category: Perspectives on Patient Safety Blog
• 15311 Views
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In late January the Associated Press and other media outlets reported that 13 hospitals in California were fined for patient safety violations by that state’s Department of Public Health. Each fine was in excess of $25,000. The most frequently occurring violations, nearly 30% of the total, involved medication errors.
 
Although not every adverse event will receive the media coverage garnered by the above examples, medication errors harm more than 1.5 million people in the United States every year according to a 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine. The report defined medication error as “all mistakes involving prescription drugs, over-the-counter products, vitamins, minerals, or herbal supplements.”
 
Medication safety is an important focus of Joint Commission standards and National Patient Safety Goals. National Patient Safety Goal 3 requires organizations to “Improve the safety of using medications.”  National Patient Safety Goal 8 requires organizations to “Accurately and completely reconcile medications across the continuum of care.” 
 
This is especially important—and difficult—in this day and age, when many patients receive prescriptions from multiple health care providers and specialists. Many patients also ingest daily cocktails of vitamins and herbal supplements, as well as over-the-counter medications that may interact with each other or their prescribed medications.
 
When a patient gets sick, he or she just wants to feel better as quickly as possible. They may not consider the risks of dangerous drug interactions and may assume that if a product is on the shelf then it must be safe and effective.  
 
Remember that a little communication can go a long way. It’s important for health care providers to specifically ask patients if they have been prescribed medications by other health care providers and for a complete list of medications they are taking. This should be done at every visit, in case something has changed. Health care providers should also specifically ask about vitamins, over-the-counter drugs, and other supplements. A patient may not consider these to be “medications” per se and may not mention them independently.
 
It never hurts to have a conversation with patients about the dangers of drug interactions. Patients may need a reminder that they should be certain that any new drug or supplement will not interact with anything they are currently taking. They should also be reminded to only use medications as prescribed or instructed in over-the-counter directions.

Remind patients to stop by the pharmacist’s window before purchasing a medication or supplement and ask about potential interactions or side effects.  These simple precautions can go a long way.