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(Circulation. 2002;106:2623.)
© 2002 American Heart Association, Inc.

AHA Scientific Statement

Medication Errors in Acute Cardiac Care

An American Heart Association Scientific Statement From the Council on Clinical Cardiology Subcommittee on Acute Cardiac Care, Council on Cardiopulmonary and Critical Care, Council on Cardiovascular Nursing, and Council on Stroke

Jane E. Freedman, MD; Richard C. Becker, MD; Jesse E. Adams, MD; Steven Borzak, MD; Robert L. Jesse, MD; L. Kristin Newby, MD; Patrick O’Gara, MD; John C. Pezzullo, PhD; Richard Kerber, MD; Bernice Coleman, RN, PhD; Joseph Broderick, MD; Sally Yasuda, MS, PharmD; Christopher Cannon, MD

Key Words: AHA Scientific Statements • medical errors • medication errors • patients • drugs

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
Medical errors occur commonly among hospitalized patients, with adverse events occurring in an estimated 3.7% to 16.6% of hospital admissions.¹ Extrapolation of this information has led to an estimate of at least 44 000 deaths in US hospitals due to medical errors that are also commonly associated with complex or urgent care and prolonged hospital stays.² In addition, preventable adverse medical events are more frequent among elderly patients, with an incidence of 5.3% compared with 2.8% in patients <65 years of age.³ This difference is attributed to the increased clinical complexity of care in the elderly, rather than to age bias, which highlights the contribution of multiple medication use to adverse outcome.^2,3 Supporting the complexity hypothesis is a 1992 study of the prevalence and types of adverse events in Utah and Colorado, which showed that adverse drug events were the leading cause (19.3%) of all nonoperative adverse events.⁴

The importance of medical errors as a major contribution to adverse events has been the recent focus of several reviews and initiatives. Medication errors have recently been evaluated by the Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP), and the British Medical Journal devoted a special issue to the subject of medical errors (March 18, 2000). The US Institute of Medicine (IOM) also published an extensive report examining the prevalence and reviewing potential causes of medical mistakes.⁵ The IOM’s report stated: "The problem is not bad people; the problem is that the system [of medical care] needs to be made safer."⁵

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