By Sheryl Ubelacker  The Canadian Press.

Read the full article here.

In the first year of mandatory reporting, Ontario hospitals disclosed that 36 patients had suffered severe adverse events – 10 of them fatal – because of medication errors.

Those errors included patients being given an excess dose of a drug or given it too often; having the wrong drug administered; or experiencing an unanticipated adverse reaction to a medicine.

Medication mistakes led to the deaths of 10 patients and severely jeopardized the health of 26 others, leading to longer hospital stays and in some cases disability, says the report compiled for the Ontario government by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada.

The report covers the period from October 2011 to December 2012, roughly the first year after the Ontario government ordered hospitals to begin reporting critical incidents involving medications or intravenous fluids.

Communication factors, drug product confusion and distractions and/or frequent interruptions were the most-cited reasons given for critical incidents having occurred.

Half the errors happened during drug administration, while about 20 per cent were traced to the prescribing process, the ISMP report says.