Giving Medication Administration the Respect It Is Due: Comment on: “Association of Interruptions With an Increased Risk and Severity of Medication Administration Errors”

Over the past decade, the health care industry has directed an increasing amount of attention to the problem of patient safety errors. A major area of focus has been medication errors, which are among the most common and costly of clinical errors in US hospitals. Conservatively, 450 000 medication errors occur every year, and annual hospital costs due to errors are estimated at $3.5 to $29 billion.^1-6