[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16296]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               ELIMINATING PREVENTABLE MEDICATION ERRORS

  (Mr. MURPHY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Speaker, a recent study by the Institute of Medicine 
reported preventable medication errors injure over 1.5 million patients 
and cost over $3.5 billion each year. In other studies these costs are 
even higher. One stated it cost Medicare $29 billion per year in health 
care costs.
  Medication errors include adverse drug reactions or errors of dosage 
or type of medication. A misspelled drug name, illegible handwriting, 
or if the physician is not aware of a patient's other prescriptions, 
these can all lead to problems.
  Yesterday, the House passed the Health Information Technology 
Promotion Act to help doctors and hospitals work together to eliminate 
drug errors. Computerized prescriptions instantaneously give physicians 
vital information and double-check all prescriptions to put patient 
safety first.
  To learn more about eliminating preventable medication errors, or 
other ways we can save lives and save money in health care, I would 
urge my colleagues to visit my Web site at murphy.house.gov.

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