“Medication errors harm 1.5 million people and kill several thousand each year in the United States, costing the nation at least $3.5 billion annually, the Institute of Medicine concluded in a report released on Thursday.
Drug errors are so widespread that hospital patients should expect to suffer one every day they remain hospitalized, although error rates vary by hospital and most do not lead to injury, the report concluded.” (New York Times )
Error rates must certainly vary by hospital! I have never seen anything like one medication error per day per patient, even adjusting for those that do not come to light, in my hospital work. In fact, I think that is inaccurate by something like two orders of magnitude.
