CMAJ • June 3, 2008; 178 (12). doi:10.1503/cmaj.071594.
© 2008 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association.
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Incidence, severity and preventability of medication-related visits to the emergency department: a prospective study

Peter J. Zed, PharmD, Riyad B. Abu-Laban, MD MHSc, Robert M. Balen, PharmD, Peter S. Loewen, PharmD, Corinne M. Hohl, MD, Jeffrey R. Brubacher, MD MSc, Kerry Wilbur, PharmD, Matthew O. Wiens, BSc(Pharm), Leslie J. Samoy, BSc(Pharm), Katie Lacaria, BSc(Pharm) and Roy A. Purssell, MD

From the Department of Pharmacy (Zed), Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre, Capital Health, Halifax, NS; the Department of Emergency Medicine and College of Pharmacy (Zed), Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; the Department of Emergency Medicine (Abu-Laban, Hohl, Brubacher, Purssell) and the Pharmaceutical Sciences Clinical Services Unit (Samoy, Lacaria), Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, BC; the Faculty of Medicine (Abu-Laban, Hohl, Brubacher, Purssell) and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Balen, Loewen, Wiens), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC; Pharmacy Services (Balen), Royal Columbian Hospital, New Westminster, BC; Pharmacy Services (Loewen), Vancouver Coastal Health — Providence Health Care, Vancouver, BC; and the Pharmacy Program (Wilbur), Qatar University, Doha, Qatar


Figure 119
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  		Figure 1: Patient flow in a study of medication-related visits to the emergency department. Eligible patients were randomly selected from the total population by systematic sampling methods. Patients who were missed were those who left the emergency department without being seen by an emergency physician or research assistant. §Overall, 137 visits were suspected of being related to medication use. Of these, 78 were deemed to be drug-related with no requirement for adjudication; 59 cases were sent to adjudication, of which 44 were determined to be drug-related. The total number of drug-related visits was therefore 122 (78 + 44). The 15 cases that went to adjudication and were determined not to be drug-related are included in the 895 non-drug-related visits.

 

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