Drug errors common at U.S. nursing homes, study finds

BOSTON (Reuters) -- Researchers estimated Thursday that at least 350,000 adverse medication errors could be occurring in U.S. nursing homes annually.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital discovered 546 medication-related injuries at 18 Massachusetts nursing homes during a yearlong study. The results included one death and 31 injuries that were life-threatening, according to the study.

If the results are extrapolated to the 1.5 million U.S. nursing home residents, then at least 350,000 adverse drug events occur every year, according to the study. The authors said in a statement that they considered the estimate to be conservative.

The most common problems occurred when care providers ordered the wrong drug or dose (47 percent of cases) and when they failed to monitor nursing home patients adequately (49 percent).

"This study points out that it's not just a small list of so-called bad drugs in the elderly that we need to be concerned about. It's the whole range of drugs," researcher Dr. Jerry Gurwitz said. "However, we have identified some drug categories that appear to cause more problems than others."

The study identified, for example, 188 potential adverse drug events in which 80 percent of the "near misses" were associated with the use of the blood thinner warfarin.

Aetna U.S. Healthcare, a unit of Aetna Inc., and the Aetna Foundation announced $840,000 in grants to five academic institutions Thursday to study how to reduce medication errors at nursing homes.

The award comes after a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine showed that medication errors accounted for between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths each year in the United States.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For more Health news, myCNN will bring you news from the areas and subjects you select.

See related sites about Health

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.