SAFER medication use in emergency departments (SAFERMEDs)

Drugs are one of the most common therapies prescribed today. In the Canadian Adverse Events Study, as with similar studies in other countries, adverse drug events were identified as an important and common problem in acute care hospitals. Emergency departments frequently see patients with drug-related morbidity (DRM). But, today in Canada, we have an incomplete picture of the magnitude and nature of this problem in this setting. One approach to improve understanding of the problem is the introduction of incident reporting systems. However, these are often costly and require that healthcare providers report events, which does not always happen. The proposed research will develop a system to identify DRM that capitalizes on the wealth of electronic data that are increasingly and routinely collected for patients who use Canada's emergency departments. This will help us to understand the problem, identify who is at greatest risk and to develop effective prevention strategies.