Bills would fund technology to fight drug errors

Legislation would promote use of electronic medical records and computerized prescribing.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. May 28, 2001.

Two Senate bills propose spending more than $1.3 billion, combined, in federal grants to fund technological advances designed to reduce medication errors in hospitals and nursing homes.

Much of the technology the bills promote aims to prevent physicians and nurses from making prescribing mistakes.

Sens. Bob Graham (D, Fla.) and Olympia Snowe (R, Maine) earlier this month introduced legislation that would set aside almost $1 billion over 10 years to pay for electronic medical records and prescribing systems at hospitals and skilled nursing homes.

In April, Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) proposed a bill that would allocate $355 million over five years to give hospitals grants to implement computer information systems. Funding would cover up to 80% of the cost of installing systems to fill prescriptions and record patient histories.

Schumer's measure, the Health Information Technology and Quality Improvement Act of 2001, would give special consideration for grants to urban and rural hospitals that show the most urgent need.

"In an era of unprecedented medical advances, it's tragic that illegible handwriting and decimal-point errors take thousands of lives," said Schumer, whose bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.).

The senators say statistics point to the need for legislation: A 1999 Institute of Medicine report found that medical errors kill up to 98,000 Americans each year. Medication errors cause an estimated 7,000 deaths and cost hospitals $2 billion.

"Tragedies involving medication errors are compounded by the fact that they are preventable," Graham said. "With the right tools and technology, hospitals can create near error-proof systems for the protection of their patients and medical staff." [...]