The cost of patient harm
U.S. health care spending reached $3.5 trillion in 2017, of which hospital care was $1.1 trillion and physician and clinical services was $694 billion. Retail prescription drugs cost $333.4 billion [1]. The cost of drug-related patient injury, referred to adverse drug events (ADEs) in the U.S. is estimated at $528 billion in 2016 [2]. Costs associated with ADEs include new hospital admissions, readmissions, prolonged length of inpatient stay and additional therapeutic interventions. According to a decade old research published by