Globally, half of preventable harm in health care is related to medication, and a quarter of it is serious or life-threatening, warns the World Health Organization (WHO) in the framework of the World Patient Safety Day, celebrated this Saturday.
Thus, the WHO emphasizes the global burden of harm caused by medication. The elderly population is one of the groups at greatest risk of suffering these damages., especially those taking multiple medications. Also, high rates of medication-related harms are seen in surgical care, critical care, and emergency medicine.
“Medications are powerful tools to protect health. But medicines that are wrongly prescribed, taken incorrectly or of poor quality can cause serious harm,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “No one should be harmed while seeking medical care”Add.
Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are one of the leading causes of preventable injury and harm in healthcare systems around the world. The global cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion annually.about 42.1 million euros.
Medication errors are due to systemic problems and/or human factors such as fatigue, poor environmental conditions, or staff shortages, which affect prescription, transcription, dispensing, administration, and follow-up practices. These errors can cause serious harm, disability, and even death.
World Patient Safety Day aims to increase public understanding and engagement and encourage countries to promote safety in healthcare. This year the focus is especially on medication safety with the motto ‘Medication without harm’.
The campaign is part of the current ‘WHO Global Challenge for Patient Safety: Medication Without Harm’, with the aim of reducing avoidable medication-related harm worldwide.
The WHO calls for an urgent improvement of strategies to reduce medication-related harm in key risk areas. Also, is collaborating with partners to develop a set of technical resources on medication safetyincluding a report on medication safety policies and solutions, such as Medication Safety for Look-Alike-Sound-Alike Medicines (LASA).
LASA drugs may look or sound similar to each other, either by generic or brand name. They may have similar packaging, similar-sounding names, or nearly identical spellings.
Failures in prescription systems are a major contributor to medication-related harm, in addition to human error. It has been shown that more than half of the damage caused by medication occurs in the phase of drug prescription and at the time that patients take them, due to inadequate control.
The highest-risk category is antibiotics, but drugs such as sedatives, anti-inflammatories, and heart and blood pressure medication also pose significant risks.
For all this, WHO calls on stakeholders to continue efforts to reduce medication-related harmdevelop strategies and structures to improve medication safety at local, national, regional and global levels, and commit to adopting the ‘Medication Without Harm Challenge’.
*With information from Europa Press.