Personal Injury Law

Will Send Email Alerts To Healthcare Providers When Dangerous Or Life-Threatening Prescription Drug Errors Are Reported To ISMP

(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)

A January 19, 2010 article, "Catching Deadly Drug Mistakes", by The Wall Street Journal's health reporter, Laura Landro, brought to our attention a new project intended to reduce medication errors. 

From that WSJ article:

... Medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually in the United States, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Now, new efforts are underway to quickly spread the word about such errors and offer guidance on how to prevent similar mistakes.

The non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices [(ISMP)], which is certified by the federal government to collect error reports and other information about quality breaches, and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists [(ASHP)]are launching a new National Alert Network for Serious Medication Errors. The network, which was unveiled last month, will be used to send email alerts to 35,000 pharmacists working in hospitals and health systems, as well as physicians and nurses, when a dangerous or life-threatening error is reported to ISMP....  The hope is that widely spreading the word about such errors will cause doctors and pharmacists to be more cautious?and ultimately prevent future mix-ups. Relevant alerts will also be sent to 20,000 drugstore pharmacists.

Hopefully this new National Alert Network for Serious Medication Errors will advance the cause of making medications safer for patients.

In her January 19 article, WSJ health reporter Landro also reminds us about two very good resources that are available to consumers and patients:

ConsumerMedSafety.org: A portal of information provided by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) where consumers can sign up for customized alerts about the medications they take and report problems they encounter with medications; and,

MedWatch: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) site for safety information on prescription drugs and other medical products, where patients can submit reports of medication errors and other serious adverse reactions directly to the FDA.

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