INTRODUCTION
Up to about 50% of hospital admissions are
associated with drug-related problems
(DRPs),1 and as a consequence, great
resources are spent on such problems. When
it comes to adverse drug reactions, a subset of
all DRPs that constitutes about 5% of hospital
admissions,2 3 only 20%e30% can be
prevented.3 4 Other DRPs include inappropriate
prescribing, such as failures to select
the appropriate drug, route of administration,
dosage or duration of treatment, based
on the patient’s medical history and
concomitant medication. These DRPs should
be possible to intervene and prevent, for
example by education,5 although altering
prescribing behaviour may be a difficult task.
A further example of a common DRP that
should be preventable is errors in patients’
medication information at transitions in