Introduction

Introduction

It is estimated 250,000 people are admitted to hospital each year in Australia due to medicine errors, unsafe use and misadventure, costing approximately 1.4 billion dollars in hospital admissions.¹

Errors can occur at any time throughout the medicines management process including, when the decision is made to use a medicine, during dispensing, and while using the medicine. Medicines safety seeks to minimise these issues and potential adverse clinical outcomes.

Access to an accurate and up to date information regarding a patient’s medicines can minimise errors and dangerous interactions, particularly when patients are receiving care across multiple providers across the healthcare sector.

This resource covers the range of national digital health initiatives currently available to support medicines safety in Australia.