In the UK, the NHS has calculated that approximately 60 patients die each day due to adverse drug errors and result in £2 billion per year in additional hospital stays. In the US, the Institute of Medicine estimated that medication errors injured 1.5 million people each year. In Spain, the Ministry of Health estimated that 9.3 per cent of hospital stays incurred a serious adverse event.

Medication errors are typically the first type with more than 30 per cent of such events.

In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health estimated that each year about 5,000 patients are subject to medication errors. As a result, about 150 patients die, over 400 are permanently disabled and nearly 3,500 are disabled for less than one year.

Every day, people still die around the world because of medication errors. Most of those errors could be easily prevented and the medical sector is working towards that end.

The medical sector has an extremely complex process in which people, drugs and medical devices need to be constantly traced to ensure that the right drug is administrated to the right patient at the right time in the right dosage. However, to manage such a process, one needs to bring together hundreds of stakeholders around the world: hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, transporters, hardware and software manufacturers, authorities… who would never be able to agree on a common solution without an organisation like GS1. Present in 108 countries, the most widely used system of standards in the world, global integrity of the system worldwide (unique numbering across borders), and proven for over 30 years in retail. Automatic identification solutions reduce the possibility of human error by matching patient data, product data and treatment data.

A business breakfast and press conference was organised by GS1 recently at The Grand Hotel Excelsior to raise awareness on how their standards create the possibility of preventing human error in local healthcare.

Attendees included Dr Joe Cassar, representatives of the Ministry of Health, Mater Dei Hospital, Zammit Clapp Hospital, Association of Private Family Doctors (APFD), Malta Standards Authority, Malta Chamber of Pharmacists, Pharmadox, Metallform and members of the local media.