Grant: Rapid Funding for DSEN Targeted Research

This study aims to describe preventable adverse drug events and to investigate potentially modifiable factors associated with these events. To do this, a study pharmacist will access medical charts for a cohort of adverse drug event patients that presented to the emergency departments of five Canadian hospitals between 2008 and 2015. The pharmacist will review the charts to investigate the preventability of each adverse drug event. The pharmacist will categorize these events by reaction type, severity and drug class, and attribute these events to factors at the system, patient and provider-level. In addition to investigating the overall preventability of adverse drug events, the investigators will also look specifically at the rate of unintentional re-exposure to previously harmful medications. The investigators will determine the patient, provider, and system-level risk factors related to these re-exposures. By identifying potentially modifiable factors associated with adverse drug events, we intend to provide guidance in the development of effective, evidence-based strategies for adverse drug event prevention.