Preventing medication related harm in surgical patients

Medication use is one of the major causes of in-hospital adverse events and can result in morbidity and mortality in hospital practice. This medication related harm is widely known as an adverse drug event (ADE). An ADE is defined as an injury, resulting from medical interventions, related to a drug.
This thesis aims to present an overview of the medication related problems in surgical patients and to provide suggestions for improvement. The first part of this thesis focuses on the epidemiology of ADEs in hospitalised surgical and nonsurgical patients and presents risk factors for experiencing ADEs. If it is clarified which patients are at risk, and what type of ADE is most harmful for the patient, than interventions can be targeted more efficiently. A targeted approach aims at selective ADE prevention, which may be more effective and less costly. In the second part, two methods to prevent ADEs in surgical patients are described, a practical drug rules tool and a ward-based pharmacy intervention strategy. Also the effectiveness of these methods is assessed. If these interventions are shown to be effective, than they can be implemented in hospitals in order to prevent medication related harm in surgical patients.