[/caption]While many seniors look to remaining in their homes as they age, new research finds that medical errors, said to be growing throughout the healthcare industry, is very much part of home health care as well and require vigilance of the patient and family.
"Elderly patients receiving home health care are usually prescribed medications by a variety of physicians, and it's a great challenge for home health care nurses to deal with prescriptions from many sources," says Dr. Yuhua Bao who headed up the research at Weill Cornell Medical College.
New research reveals that 40% of home health care assistance has involved medication errors. Most of the patients were taking 11 types of medications, which researchers tell us is a red flag for potential errors. But Bao maintains that home health care agencies have a model that can help reduce medication errors, as it is the time when a proper medication review can be undertaken.
3,124 home health patients 65 years of age or older were evaluated, and 38% of the patients were found to be taking at least one inappropriate drug. The more medications prescribed, the higher the number of errors, it was found, as those taking 15 or more medications were five to six times more likely to have prescription errors’ The reason for this is hypothesized from anecdotal evidence that reveals most doctors are not aware total drug regemin of a given patient and lack an electronic reference that lists all the medications.
Medicine.net reveals that prescription errors injure 1.3 million people annually in the United States.
The FDA studied medication errors that resulted in death during the period 1993 to 1998 to evaluate the types and frequencies of errors as well as the demographics involved in the administration of wrong medications. 41% of these errors involved an improper dose of medicine, while 16% involved giving the wrong drug or using the wrong method of drug administration. Nearly half of those who died as a result of medication errors were over the age of 60.
So how can a patient be protected from medication errors, especially in a home care situation? Experts say it is critical that the treating physician have a list of all the medications a patient is taking, including alternative medications. This means a list should be maintain of those medications and then given to the medical provider. The patient should also ask the pharmacist to check and make sure that the medication prescribed is the one authorized specifically by the doctor. What is the medicine for is a key question to ask as well as how long it should be taken and how. Side effects should be discussed in terms of the characteristics and what to do if an individual experiences them. The patient should also establish with the doctor whether the medication is safe to take with other medications or alternative medications and dietary supplements. Interactions with food should also be explored.
Institute of Medicine (IOM), published a study entitled To Err is Human which highlighted the serious problems related to medical errors. Since 2002 there has been a decided focus on reducing medical errors, but experts maintain there is still much to be done, especially since much of the focus has been on errors made in hospital settings. Vigilance in home car settings is now seen as important, as there remains lots to be done in maintaining proper health care standards across the healthcare system.
