Herbal Spotlight
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 Reducing Drug-Related Injuries
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched a program aimed at reducing harm from medication misuse, errors, and other preventable problems. Called the Safe Use Initiative, the program intends to develop targeted solutions for reducing drug-related injuries.
Using a collaborative approach, the program will include drug makers, insurers, hospitals, pharmacies, prescribers, other health care providers, and patients themselves. The goal is to identify specific, preventable medication risks and to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions to reduce preventable harm.
The FDA has already launched several risk-reduction strategies, including those aimed at:
- reducing accidental and intentional acetaminophen overdose
- reducing the risk of surgical fires from alcohol pads,
- increasing the precision of liquid dose measuring devices and instructions for their use
- increasing the safety of injectable drugs packaged in vials.
FDA officials report that up to 3 billion drug prescriptions are written annually in the United States and that more than 1.5 million preventable adverse drug events occur each year at a cost of more than $4 billion annually. Emergency departments nationwide see about 60,000 visits yearly from unsupervised ingestion of medications by children younger than 12 years; more than 165,000 visits from nonmedical use of hydrocodone, oxycodone, and methadone; and more than 180,000 visits from suicide attempts.
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