Medication Safety is Important

Adverse drug events are harms resulting from the use of medication and include allergic reactions, side effects, overmedication and medication errors. Adverse drug events are a serious public health problem.

It is estimated that:

• 82 percent of American adults take at least one medication and 29 percent take five or more.

• ADEs cause approximately 1.3 million emergency department visits and 350,000 hospitalizations each year.

• $3.5 billion is spent on excess medical costs of ADEs annually.

• More than 40% of costs related to ambulatory (non-hospital) ADEs might be preventable.

The numbers of adverse drug events is likely to grow due to:

• Development of new medicines.

• Discovery of new uses for older medicines.

• Aging American population.

• Increased use of medicines for disease treatment and prevention.

• Expansion of insurance coverage for prescription medicines.

Content source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.