As many as one in 20 patients experience avoidable side effects from medication that they use, with this figure rising to 7% in developing countries. 

The causes range from taking the medication at the wrong time, which could result in minor side effects, to taking an  inappropriate drug, which might result in unpredicted harm as serious as yet another disease or even death.

Such errors are not that scarce, concludes Dr Maria Panagioti, senior lecturer in primary care and Health Services Research at the University of Manchester and one of the authors of a new World Health Organization (WHO) systematic review “Global burden of preventable medication-related harm”. 

The global cost associated with administering unsafe care is estimated at $ 40 billion each year, WHO says.

“Without measurement, action to drive improvements are not possible, regardless of context,” said Dr Neelam Dhingra, head of  WHO’s Patient Safety Unit, during a webinar on the new guidance. 

While developing new treatments and better policies is important, much progress in healthcare can be achieved as a result of simply “doing no harm,” she said.

Errors occur, reduction targets are scarce

Only 18% of WHO member countries have a national target for reducing medication-related harm.

Seven years ago, WHO established a Medication Without Harm challenge in which it setting the goal of reducing harm by incorrect medication by half in five years. This was followed by a Global Patient Safety Action Plan, approved by the World Health Assembly in 2019. But much remains to be done.

“Assessing the burden of patient harm and also medication-related harm is a critical part of measuring patient safety,” Dhingra highlighted. “However, this truly remains a challenging agenda still.”

According to the new systematic review, half of all avoidable harm in medical care is related to medication, and a quarter of mediciation’s preventable harm can have severe or even life-threatening consequences.

Many mistakes occur in specific contexts, such as when patients are already taking many different kinds of medication (polypharmacy) that interact with one another, or patients who transition between caretakers, or in situations where high risk drugs are used.

Areas of improvement

The new WHO policy brief proposes key areas for addressing the risks including better communication and engagement of patients and patient organisations. With good public awareness of medication effects, it is easier for patients themselves to identify errors, such as the prescription of the wrong drug by a pharmacist.

Healthcare workers should also receive training on medication harm, the brief notes. Better health worker conditions also reduce the risk of errors from factors such as fatigue and multi-tasking.

Identification of high risk drugs and additional care in their management is also critical. 

There is a “huge burden of preventable harm due to unsafe medication practices and medication errors,” Dhingra noted. ”Action is required at all levels, […] and we need to implement safe systems and practices for medic medications.”

Image Credits: WHO/Quinn Mattingly, WHO, WHO.