BMJ  2006;333:1238 (16 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39059.629120.DB

News

Dutch doctors call for action on drug safety

Tony Sheldon

1 Utrecht

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Doctors, pharmacists, and patients' groups in the Netherlands are demanding government action on drug safety after a national study has concluded that drug related problems were responsible for twice as many hospital admissions as road traffic crashes.

The hospital admissions related to medication (HARM) study found that 41 000 hospital admissions a year in the Netherlands were caused either by the incorrect use of or adverse reactions to drugs (www.nvza.nl).

These admissions accounted for 5.6% of acute admissions and were twice as likely to involve patients older than 65 years.

Almost half—19 000 admissions—were deemed "possibly avoidable" and cost the health services {euro}85m (£57m; $112m) a year. They were thought to play a part in an estimated 1254 deaths a year.

This first empirical study into the safety of medicines in the Netherlands screened all acute admissions in 21 hospitals over 40 days to see whether the reasons . . . [Full text of this article]


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This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Cresswell, K. M., Fernando, B., McKinstry, B., Sheikh, A. (2007). Adverse drug events in the elderly. Br Med Bull 83: 259-274 [Abstract] [Full text]  

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