Medication errors is an ongoing problem, causing thousands of preventable deaths each year. Despite efforts by the medical profession and hospital industry to reduce the incidence of medication errors, they continue to be a leading cause of medical malpractice and preventable death and injury in hospital settings. The very young and very old are particularly susceptible, though they are by no means the exclusive victims. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cites the American Hospital Association, and lists some of the more common form of medication errors. They include:

• incomplete patient information (not knowing about patients' allergies, other medicines they are taking, previous diagnoses, and lab results, for example);
• unavailable drug information (such as lack of up-to-date warnings);
• miscommunication of drug orders, which can involve poor handwriting, confusion between drugs with similar names, misuse of zeroes and decimal points, confusion of metric and other dosing units, and inappropriate abbreviations;
• lack of appropriate labeling as a drug is prepared and repackaged into smaller units; and
• environmental factors, such as lighting, heat, noise, and interruptions, that can distract health professionals from their medical tasks.

I will be writing periodically on the topic of medication errors. Watch for a comprehensive article on the subject in the Articles section of this web site. For information about a deadly form of medication error – anesthesia negligence – read my article, Deadly Anesthesia Errors.