Report Recommends Ways To Curb Medication Errors in California

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

Report Recommends Ways To Curb Medication Errors in California

Source: iHealthBeat (http://www.ihealthbeat.org)
Date: March 07, 2007


A California panel on Tuesday released a report calling for physicians to use electronic
prescribing technology and for legislators to adopt other strategies to reduce medication
errors, the Sacramento Bee reports. 

The Medication Errors Panel was created through legislation by former state Sen. Jackie
Speier (D) (Lin, Sacramento Bee, 3/7). The panel produced the report through funding from
the California HealthCare Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Pharmacy
Foundation of California managed the funding (California Pharmacists Association release,
3/6). 

The panel consisted of health care, consumer advocacy and academic representatives. 

Recommendations from the report included:
Adding the purpose of a pill to a prescription label;
Labeling bottles in different languages; 
Creating a public education campaign; and
Establishing a state-funded pilot project to collect data on the prevalence of medication
errors at pharmacies in California. 

Speier estimated that up to "150,000 California lives are jeopardized every year through
injuries and/or deaths" because the Legislature has not made an effort to reduce
medication errors . 

According to the report, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R)wants all prescriptions to be
transmitted electronically by 2010 to prevent handwriting-related errors.

"No one should suffer from errors in the improper prescribing, dispensing or use of
medication, or suffer from unnecessary health care-acquired infections," Kim Belshé,
state Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. "For this reason, Gov.
Schwarzenegger's reform proposal calls for dramatic change to prevent not only medication
errors, but medical errors as well" (Sacramento Bee, 3/7)

The California HealthCare Foundation is the publisher of iHealthBeat. 

For more information, please visit:
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/index.cfm?action=dspItem&itemid=131439 


Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/



 
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