March 2, 2007

With Medication More Prevalent, HIT Can Aid Patient Safety

Americans are taking more prescription medicines than ever.  Health information technology can prevent taking a deadly combination of drugs.

• Dr. Howard Markel wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed that prescription medicines, dietary supplements and over-the-counter drugs have become more popular in the past decade.
   
• That makes the chances of a drug interaction more common.  The solution? Using health IT to safeguard against harmful combos.

Medications have taken a greater role in treating and preventing our maladies. This translates into savings on other fronts, like avoiding more invasive treatments or extended hospitalizations.

• Americans filled 3.6 billion prescriptions in 2005.  That’s 70 percent higher than the number taken in 1994.
   
• In 2004, 82 percent of Americans said they took at least one prescription, herbal supplement or over-the-counter medicine the week before. Some 30 percent took five or more medications at a time.
   
• Three-fourths of Americans over 65 years old took four drugs daily in 2005. On average, 75-year-olds took eight drugs a day.

Unfortunately, adverse drug reactions have increased as well.

• “Adverse drug events are a major cause of serious illness in the country, especially among the elderly,” the Times said, citing the Journal of the American Medical Association.
   
• Senior citizens are twice as likely to require treatment in the emergency room because of adverse drug reactions, and seven times as likely to need hospitalization.

HIT can help better manage America’s prescription drug usage.  Technology can prevent dangerous drug interactions and reduce medication errors – and, thus, save health costs and improve patient safety and health. A 2006 Institute of Medicine study estimated that reducing medication errors could save $3.5 billion a year.  HIT holds much potential. Congress should move forward on encouraging its development and dissemination.