Prescribed Medications and the Public Health:
Laying the Foundation for Risk Reduction

ISBN-10: 0789023601
ISBN-13: 978-0789023605
Publisher: Haworth Press; 1 edition
Publication Date: August 9, 2006
Hardcover: 355 pages

Most people know America has a drug abuse problem. However, except for those working in the health care delivery system, relatively few people know about medication safety. Yet, contemporary practices for the professional authorization and handling of prescribed medication has been broken for a long time. 

Flaws in the medication use system cause too many misadventures that result in morbidity and mortality. Major preventive ideas and strategies are known and are waiting to be applied. In addition, better organization of the drug use process would save the nation much money, and more importantly save lives.

This volume explains and critically evaluates the legal drug use system in the United States and offers suggestions on what can be done to optimize its performance. In confronting this, society faces a major dilemma – should the medication use system be fixed first and the hope that this will serve as a stimulus to health reform? Or, should the United States endeavor to first reorganize the overall health care delivery system through some form of national health insurance and infrastructure improvements?

This analysis is intended for those interested in helping to improve our ability to use drugs more safely. Thus, the primary audience for this book includes health care practitioners, drug safety researchers, health care policy makers, the media, executives of health care provider organizations, faculty of health professional schools, and consumers seeking to understand medication safety issues.

Chapters in this book include: 

Forward – D. W. Bates, MD

Chapter 1 – America’s Drug Problem

Chapter 2 – The Nature and Scope of the Problem

Chapter 3 – How Patients are Harmed by Medication

Chapter 4 – Adverse Drug Reactions

Chapter 5 – Allergic Drug Reactions

Chapter 6 – Are Drug Interactions Really Dangerous?

Chapter 7 – The Most Dangerous Drug Misadventure

Chapter 8 – Are Vaccines Safe?

Chapter 9 – Probing the Ambulatory Environment

Chapter 10 – The Liability for Drug Injury

Chapter 11 – Assessing the Evidence of Drug Injury

Chapter 12 – Detecting and Documenting Adverse Drug Events

Chapter 13 – Investigating, Assessing, & Reporting Adverse Drug Events

Chapter 14 – Can Some Adverse Drug Events be Predicted?

Chapter 15 – Preventing and Reducing Medication Injury

Chapter 16 – What’s a Patient to Do?

Chapter 17 – Developing a National Plan to Improve Medication Safety

Chapter 18 – Health Policy: Pursuing Optimization or Chasing Perpetual Illusions?

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