Prescription Cascade The practice of over prescribing medication is a recent problem facing many today. This is referred to as the prescribing cascade. Dr. Mehrdad Ayati an assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, describes Prescription cascade in the following statement “To put this simply, a patient goes to a doctor’s office with an illness and is given a prescription this prescription has a side effect that causes another illness, and now the patient, unaware that the prescription is the problem, visits the same, or another doctor and is given another prescription. Then this prescription result in a new side effect, which sends the patient to the same, or yet another doctor for the new symptom, and …show more content…
Lucian L. Leape Conducted a study in 1995 on “health policy analyst at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that 6.5 percent of patients at two teaching hospitals in Boston had been injured by their medicines, and one-third of these cases involved mistakes” (Stolberg, 1999). Due to this Study the F.D.A. official were convinced that the danger of prescription cascade is growing which prompted them to release a 150-page report which was made public, that called for pharmacists, doctors, hospitals and drug companies to work together to create ' 'a new framework ' ' for cutting down on overlapping prescription that have a high risk of causing a cascade. Explicit warning pamphlets were also created according to the new guidelines which requires manufacturers to release side effect possibilities in high risk drugs. (Stolberg, 1999) “Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the F.D.A. 's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said people are being harmed and some of the harm is preventable ' ' (Le Fanu, 2014). With millions of drugs on the market, and with multiple drugs just for one ailment, it wouldn’t take much to cause a wrong combination that could cause injury or death. Hospitals across the U.S. reported in 2011 adverse reactions from prescription drugs caused 2.2 million injuries and 106,000 deaths that two-thirds could have been prevented with proper monitoring of prescription drugs. (Bremner, …show more content…
A drug for anything that ails you. Americans need to rethink what they are putting into their bodies’. Food, drugs, pesticides and alcohol all play a role in our prescription medications and the way they work in our bodies. There are other actions that individuals can take to improve their health, such as making changes in your diet; incorporating exercise into your daily routine; learning and using stress reduction techniques; and changing other behaviors like quitting smoking and alcohol consumption. Diabetes and heart disease can be treated with medication, but changes such as exercise, diet and lifestyle have shown higher success rates than with drugs alone. There are positive and necessary prescription use, such as “insulin for Type I diabetes, thyroid hormone for hypothyroidism, or antibiotics for life threatening infections” (Bremner, 2011), but diet and exercise can play a role in how these prescriptions
Dr. John Abramson’s book Overdosed America debunks the myths about the excellence of American medicine. Abramson backs up this claim by closely examining research about medicine, closely examining the unpublished details submitted by drug manufacturers to the FDA, and discovering that the unpublished data does not coincide with the claims made about the safety and effectiveness of commonly used medicines. Abramsons purpose is to point out the flaws of the pharmaceutical industry in order to warn the readers about the credibility of the drugs they are buying. Given the critical yet technical language of the book, Abramson is writing to an audience that may include academic physicians as well as those who want to learn about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
Statistics show that between 1979 and 2006, there were more than sixty two million deaths investigated and of those, 244,388 were caused by a hospital medication error (Cox, 2010). The following information highlights medication errors made in three facilities in the United States with the drug Heparin. The focus of this paper will be on how the medication errors were made, what could have prevented them, the legal ramifications from the mistakes, and changes that were implemented to eliminate potential future risks.
More than often, American’s argue that if we have the technology to gain access to these “miracle meds”, then we should take advantage of it. To receive an opposing view, the National Institute of Drug Abuse asked teens around America why they think prescription drugs are overused, and the results were shocking; 62%: “Easy to get from parent's medicine cabinets”, 51%: “They are not illegal drugs”, 49%: “Can claim to have prescription if caught”, 43%: “They are cheap”, 35%: “Safer to use than illegal drugs”, 33%: “Less shame attached to using”, 32%: “Fewer side effects than street drugs”, 25%: “Can be used as study aids”, and 21%: “Parents don't care as much if caught”. I believe the major problem here isn’t the medication, but instead the fact that our nation is extremely uninformed on the “do’s and dont’s” of prescription medication. When “the United States is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 75 percent of the the world's prescription drugs” (CDC), there is a problem present, no matter the reason. Clearly, many critics believe the breathtaking amount of pills we consume in America is simply for the better good, but tend to forget the effects that are soon to follow.
US’s pharmacists have their hands tied and are demanding every patient to receive the precise medication prescription they have written up for. On the other hand, being a pharmacist is more than that, it is about building your patients’ knowledge on the risks and potential hazards on certain medications they are prescribed to. With that being said, this means that a pharmacist’s job is directly providing for patient in order to help them live a long healthy life within their scope of practice. Pharmacists cannot afford for any errors to occur and taking the time to make sure the accurate bottle of medication falls into the right patient’s hands is a huge responsibility for pharmacists
Although the pharmaceutical industry says that prescription medicines are as safe as they can possibly be, prescribed drugs have a high increase of risking a patient’s health. According to the law, drug makers seek Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for specific uses of their products and conduct trials to test their drugs safety and effectiveness in patients with specific conditions. The FDA demands that drug companies conduct rigorous clinical trials to prove a drugs safety and effectiveness in treating a particular disease. However, once the FDA approves a drug for one use, doctors can prescribe it for whatever they want. The FDA is considering loosening the monitoring of off-label prescriptions, but if anything, regulations should be tightened. Despite the practices of some medical personnel, the risk of serious medical complications demands that the FDA regulate and restrict off-label use of prescription drugs.
* There are close to 2 million cases each year of drug complications that result in 180,000 deaths or life-threatening illnesses in the eldery (Langreth, 2004).
During the years of 1999-2000 only 6.3 percent of Americans used five or more medications, and then in the years of 2007-2008 about 10.7 percent of Americans used five or more medications, that is a 4.4 percent increase. In the last decade alone the use of five or more medications has increased 70 percent. Creating the stronger need for healthcare providers to communicate about the care of their patients is becoming evident. However in recent years more hospitals are using electronic medical records that can be sent to each healthcare provider, this helps the patient relive some of the stress in remembering what all medications they take and the dosages they are taking. Also healthcare providers can now see when their patient was last in to see another doctor and what there diagnosis was creating a more stable health system and less medication reactions. Although there is always room error but if every hospital adopts this system there is a good possibility that polypharmacy may be a thing of the past. Polypharmacy is becoming a fatal epidemic for the elderly, it is pertinent to know the risks and ways to prevent
Pharmacy is a booming field when it comes to medicine, but it certainly has controversial issues such as compounding drugs. While the practice of making drugs customized to a patient seems ethical, there are problems that come along with it. Drug compounding was the norm in the past, but over time consumers began to see issues with it. Drug compounding still occurs to this day because some patients do need medicine specifically tailored to their needs. Compounding has also been the focus of recent disasters, some of which occurred less than two years ago. Whatever side one may take on this issue, it is clear that compounding medicine will be a polarizing issue for years to come.
“According to the General Accounting Office, more than half of the prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1976 and 1985 caused serious side effects that later caused the drugs to be either relabeled or removed from the market. Drugs app...
Medication errors are any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care profession, patient or consumer (Johnson, 2012). Approximate 1.3 million people injure each year due to medication errors in the United States. According to the Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention describes medication errors as any event that cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while on the medication (Comrade 2014). The Food and drug administration evaluates and report the most common medication error as improper dosage accounts for 41 percent of fatal medication error and failure
One of the main causes of prescription drug abuse is the lack of education for both doctors and patients. People usually use prescription drugs to loose weight, get high, and get stronger. Many people who consume drugs do not know the dangers that exist while consuming them. Patients normally don’t think to themselves that these medications are dangerous because they come from Pharmacies and are provided from doctors. However, prescription drugs can be just as deadly and detrimental to your health like a gun or drinking alcohol can be. Most people don’t care to properly store them either. If prescription drugs aren't treated at the recommended temperature, at the right dosage, or taken by the right person, you can take something that was meant to save lives and turn it into something that can seriously hurt or make you very sick. One of the most dangerous prescription drugs out there right now is OxyCotin. OxyCotin is a prescription drug pain reliever that's designed to slowly release medicine over time by form of a capsule. Abusers bypass that by chewing, injecting, and even snorting the medicine in the drug (Meadows, Michelle). Prescription Drugs: Their Use and Abuse says when a person takes so much over the safe dosage amount the drug can actually have very different effects on your body.
One of the main causes of prescription drug abuse is the insufficiency of education for both doctors and patients. If David knew more about the dangers of prescription drugs, his death would ha...
Prescription drugs become America's new legal drug abuse problem. 1.) The U.S. Makes up 5% if the world's population, yet consumes more than 75% of the own world's prescription drugs, and more people thought that since it is pre-scripted by doctors, it won't be as harmful to take as much as they want a day. 2.) 50 Million people in the U.S. age of 12 and over, have used prescription drugs non-medically in their lifetime. 3.) According to pharmaceutical industries, it rakes about billions of dollars per year producing drugs to treat symptoms, like how the pharmacy, Big Pharma, raked $711 billion. This article is important because it talks about different people's experience with prescription drugs and how pharmacies are getting paid chunks
We are in a society where we take a pill for everything, i.e., to lose weight, to get rid of a headache. Whatever we need a pill for, it is there. In United States, the abuse of painkillers and other prescription drugs has reached epidemic levels and become one of the top causes of death every year. In 2010, more than 38,000 deaths were due to overdosing. These include drugs like methadone, oxydone, or morphine. Death rates from prescription drugs were highest among people from middle-aged groups.
Medication errors are and continue to be a substantial problem in the health care setting. The definition of a medication error is “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm” (Brady, 2009). These errors are one of the major causes of harm to a patient while they are in the hospital. Medication errors is not a foreign concept to nursing, and the profession has come a long way in bettering the safety of the medication administration process. However, there is still a staggering number of medication errors that are happening daily. “About 15% of adverse events occurring in hospitals are related to medications” and an estimated 98,000 people in the U.S. die each year from medical errors with a