Burden of Medication Errors on US Healthcare Costs

             As we discussed in class, the United States spends more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, including 10 high-income developed countries. Despite its higher spending on healthcare, the US continues to have underwhelming performance in areas such as healthcare coverage and outcomes. Increased resource allocation on healthcare without improved outcomes has become a national concern for the United States. The rising costs of US healthcare have been attributed to the US fee-for-service system, underinvestment in social services, and high prices for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. However, I argue that the direct medical costs associated with medication errors are a significant economic burden on the US healthcare system.

            A medication error is defined as a preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm. Medication errors poses a significant issue for healthcare quality and costs in the United States, costing approximately $21 billion annually in direct medical costs across all care settings. In 2008, the US Department of Health and Human Services estimated that approximately 1 out of every 7 hospitalized Medicare patient experienced permanent harm from a medical error and that 37% of these errors were associated with medications. One of the main concerning points of this study was that 50% of these medication errors could have been prevented.

           In many healthcare systems, including Michigan Medicine, medication errors and incidents are voluntarily reported by staff. This strategy of voluntary reporting has inherent limitations that affect patient safety such as under-reporting and under-detection. I argue that medication error reporting needs to become more stringent within healthcare systems to comprehensively capture medication errors, which will consequently improve patient safety and decrease healthcare system spending. However, in order for a system wide change to occur, the culture surrounding medication error reporting must first change. Instead of a system that blaming and punitive, healthcare systems must adopt a system that prioritizes patient safety and embraces continuous improvement. I believe that as healthcare continues to focus on patient safety, economic burdens will be alleviated as patients will not have to seek recurrent treatment.

 References:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2674671
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4031698/x