12 Dec 2018

Too many medication errors: patient watchdog

From Nine To Noon, 9:21 am on 12 December 2018
Variety of medicine bottles behind pills spilling from fallen bottle.

Photo: feverpitched/123RF

The Health and Disability Commissioner is calling for a faster roll out electronic health records nationally to cut down the number of medication errors. Anthony Hill has just released a report analysing 338 drug errors over seven years until 2016. Mr Hill says having an electronic health record that follows patients throughout the health system would avoid much of this, but roll-out by district health boards is incomplete and it must be prioritised.