Materia Medica Malaysiana

Doctor: Few medical errors in hospitals: "PETALING JAYA: The record of medical errors reported in Malaysia is small compared to developed nations but continuous risk management methods must be taken to improve patient safety in hospitals, Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia (APHM) president Datuk Dr Ridzwan Bakar said.
He said based on the results of the Incident Reporting exercise conducted last year on all public hospitals, medication errors only made up 0.01% of the total number of cases surveyed.
“This meant that out of more than 10 million prescriptions, 1,637 errors are recorded.
“This is small compared to the 98,000 deaths noted yearly in the United States due to medical errors implied from two studies conducted, one in 1984 and the other in 1992.
“However, this also means 1,637 lives were affected because of these mistakes,” he said in his speech at the official launch of the International Healthcare Show 2003 yesterday.
Dr Ridzwan also said adverse drug reactions were reported in 13,319 patients out of the one million episodes of care surveyed last year.
The Incident Reporting Programme, implemented in all hospitals, presently monitors 31 types of incidents in hospital settings which includes medication errors, adverse outcomes of procedures, falls in the wards and wrong procedures performed.
“We need to consider the tools for mitigating such risks, which include quality assurance programmes, performance indicators, clinical audit and the patient safety council,” he added. "