An Australian study has examined opioid-related medication safety incidents there documented in all public hospitals in a single state of Australia , between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2018. Opioids were implicated in 11.0% (857) of all medication‐related clinical incidents reported. Tapentadol was the individual agent most reported (131; 15.3%), although when products containing oxycodone alone in combination with naloxone were combined, this drug was actually more frequently implicated. None of the reported incidents resulted in death but 4 caused severe harm and 30 were associated with a moderate degree of harm. Most incidents occurred during the administration phase of the medication management cycle (630; 73.5%). The famous APINCH acronym that identifies “narcotics”‘ (opioids) as a significant cause of medication-related harm appears to have been reflected in this research – despite the fact that these drugs have been know to be implicated in serious medication-related harm for decades, the extent of traction in preventing these incidents appears to be disappointing. More details are available here.
