Knowledge Library

Adverse Drug Events and Medication Errors*

An adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as “harm experienced by a patient as a result of exposure to a medication.”¹ The Institute of Medicine says an ADE is “an injury resulting from a medical intervention.”² Like any adverse event, occurrence of an ADE does not necessarily indicate an error or poor quality care. However, adverse drug events account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits and 100,000 hospitalizations annually.¹

Facing a lawsuit can be an upsetting and often intimidating process. Coming from the medical environment, you may not have exposure to the complexities of the legal system, and you may have questions about how it works. Added to that, you may also be dealing with emotions ranging from confusion to anger. To help you prepare for what’s to come, NORCAL Group offers this Anatomy of a Medical Malpractice Case to provide an overview of the general litigation process as well as recommendations to help you through it.

Patient experience: “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care”¹

Today’s healthcare consumers are better educated with greater access to information to guide them than ever before. They're acting in many ways more like modern retail consumers than the passive recipients of medical care of years past.² As they do in other areas of their lives are leaning heavily on physician reviews to help them select a physician.¹

The digital practice—the electronic storage, access, sharing, and monitoring of health information—promises increased convenience, improved patient care, and lower costs.¹ But this electronic access to medical records also brings with it a potentially costly risk to medical practices.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services declared a public health emergency to address the opioid crisis.¹ But while increased awareness and better prescribing practices have helped—overall prescribing rates peaked in 2012 and have declined each year since to a 12-year low in 2017.³—there is still cause for concern. In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose and an estimated 1.7 million suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioids.²