DEATHS FROM MEDICATION ERRORS MORE THAN DOUBLE IN DECADE

Fatalities among outpatients account for more than half the total from 1983
to 1993.

LONDON-Deaths from medication mistakes in the United States more than
doubled between 1983 and 1993, with the sharpest increase coming in deaths
among outpatients, according to research published Friday.

During that period, the number of deaths from accidental poisoning by drugs
and other medicines climbed from 851 to 2,098, said the report published in
today's issue of the British medical journal The Lancet.

Included in those figures is the number of deaths among outpatients, which
increased from 172 to 1,459. In 1983, outpatients were three times more
likely than inpatients to die of medication errors, but by 1993 the risk
was 6.5 times greater.

"Something scary is going on and we should be worried," said David
Phillips, a sociologist at the University of California, San Diego, who
headed the research team.

The group analyzed all U.S. death certificates that listed cause of death
as a medication mistake. The certificates did not make clear whether the
deaths were caused by a medical professional's error or patient error, the
report said.

The study did not include deaths caused by natural adverse reactions to
medicine, the researchers said.

The researchers found that the increase in death rate attributable to
medication mistakes is sharper than the increase for any cause of death
other than AIDS, Philips added.

He said the data show the problem is not the medicines themselves, because
the same medicines so not cause such increased death rates when used on
patients in the hospital.

"It has to do with the quality control of the way in which it is given or
taken or the way in which the patient is monitored," Phillips said. "They
were either given the wrong dose, the wrong medicine, or the patient could
overdose or mix it.