Facts You Need to Know

• Each year more people die from preventable medical errors in hospitals than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, and Aids.
• Medication mistakes injure more than 1.5 million people each year (IOM, July 2006).
• Estimates suggest that 1 percent of health expenditures, or $8.8 billion dollars, is attributable to preventable adverse events.
• The leading cause of patient harm is medication errors, which account for almost 20 percent of medical injuries.
• 28% of medication related injuries or adverse drug events are considered preventable.
• The Risk of patient harm due to medication errors with a Patient Controlled Analgesic (PCA) pump is 3.5 times the risk from any other type of medication administration error.
• Despite the facts, there are very few hospitals that have continuous monitoring on their patients when using IV medications or a PCA pump. The concentrations of the Narcotics can be hard to measure, and therefore increases the chances of overdose. One of the side-effects from Narcotics overdose is respiratory depression.
• Every additional patient per RN per shift is associated with a 53 percent increase in pulmonary failure and a 17 percent increase in medical complications.

1."To Err is Human" Report by the Institute of Medicine 1999.

2. Intravenous Infusion Safety Initiative: Collaboration, Evidence-Based Best Practices, and "Smart" Technology Help Avert High-Risk Adverse Drug Events and Improve Patient Outcomes BY:Ray R. Maddox, PharmD; Sherry Danello, RN, MSN; Carolyn K. Williams, BSPharm; Marianne Fields, RN, MSN

3. Nurse Staffing and Quality of Patient Care
http://www.ahrq.gov

Investigators
Robert L. Kane, M.D.
Tatyana Shamliyan, M.D., M.S.
Christine Mueller, Ph.D., R.N.
Sue Duval, Ph.D.
Timothy J. Wilt, M.D., M.P.H.

AHRQ publication no 07-E005