Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2008;12(2):137.
doi: 10.1186/cc6858. Epub 2008 Apr 22.

Pharmacotherapeutic friendly fire in the intensive care unit: high stakes seeking high calibre

Affiliations
Comment

Pharmacotherapeutic friendly fire in the intensive care unit: high stakes seeking high calibre

Christopher S Parshuram. Crit Care. 2008.

Abstract

Increasing numbers of patients are surviving the intensive care unit. Concordant with our shifting focus to minimizing intensive care unit-acquired morbidity, in the present issue of Critical Care Moyen, Camire, and Stelfox describe the importance of quality pharmacotherapy. They describe challenges and potential solutions to this source of iatrogenic injury in our vulnerable patients. Their article reminds us not to understate the importance of medication error, to avoid overstating the benefits of incompletely proven methods to prevent medication error, and to distinguish harmful medication errors from other types of medication error.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment on

References

    1. Moyen E, Camire E, Stelfox HT. Clinical review: Medication errors in critical care. Crit Care. 2008;12:208. doi: 10.1186/cc6813. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Donchin Y, Gopher D, Olin M, Badihi Y, Biesky M, Sprung CL, Pizov R, Cotev S. A look into the nature and causes of human errors in the intensive care unit. Crit Care Med. 1995;23:294–300. doi: 10.1097/00003246-199502000-00015. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cimino MA, Kirschbaum MS, Brodsky L, Shaha SH. Assessing medication prescribing errors in pediatric intensive care units. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2004;5:124–132. doi: 10.1097/01.PCC.0000112371.26138.E8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rothschild JM, Landrigan CP, Cronin JW, Kaushal R, Lockley SW, Burdick E, Stone PH, Lilly CM, Katz JT, Czeisler CA, Bates DW. The Critical Care Safety Study: the incidence and nature of adverse events and serious medical errors in intensive care. Crit Care Med. 2005;33:1694–1700. doi: 10.1097/01.CCM.0000171609.91035.BD. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sharek PJ, Horbar JD, Mason W, Bisarya H, Thurm CW, Suresh G, Gray JE, Edwards WH, Goldmann D, Classen D. Adverse events in the neonatal intensive care unit: development, testing, and findings of an NICU-focused trigger tool to identify harm in North American NICUs. Pediatrics. 2006;118:1332–1340. doi: 10.1542/peds.2006-0565. - DOI - PubMed