We often talk about the four rights – the right medicine for the right patient at the right time in the right dose. But that fourth “right” – dosing – often gets forgotten.
Today’s news, from the May edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, finds that U.S. hospitalizations for poisoning by prescription opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers have jumped 65 percent from 1999 to 2006. That number is almost twice the increase in hospitalizations for poisonings by all other drugs and medicinal substances. “People are seeing headlines...and thinking 'it's sad and tragic but maybe it's just Hollywood,’ said lead author Jeffrey H. Coben, M.D., a professor and director of the Injury Control Research Center at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. “It's widespread throughout the U.S. and involves serious hospitalizations and is escalating at a rapid pace."
For those who don’t think that proper dosing isn’t an issue – think again.
It’s a killer.
