While the health care industry in New York has taken great strides toward eliminating prescription medication errors, there are still instances that lead to higher levels of mistakes. This is dangerous given that medication errors can lead to adverse and sometimes even fatal reactions between different medications.

When patients visit emergency rooms in New York, medical personnel face challenges in collecting accurate information about medications. Electronic medical records might contain previous errors about medications, or physicians and nurses might lack the time and expertise to fully investigate patients’ medication histories. A study that appeared in BMJ Quality & Safety examined these problems and concluded that medication errors represented the most common reason that inpatients experienced injuries in hospitals.