03/24/2023

March 24 is National Adverse Drug Event Awareness Day!

The American Society of Pharmacovigilance established National Adverse Drug Event Awareness Day (March 24) to reduce the rate of adverse drug events (ADEs) in the United States.

ADEs are associated with injuries and deaths and contribute significantly to healthcare costs.

ADEs account annually for 1 million emergency department visits, 2.2 million hospital admissions, 3.5 million physician office visits and $136 billion in US healthcare costs.

The estimated number of ADEs each year is over 100,000 making it the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

One way the U.S. is trying to reduce adverse drug reactions is through the discipline of pharmacogenomics, or the science of how a person’s genes affect how they respond to medications. Its long-term goal is to help doctors select the drugs and doses best suited for each person.

The recent results of the PREPARE (Pharmacogenomic Testing for Preventing Adverse Drug Reactions) study showed that pharmacogenomic-guided prescribing reduced clinically relevant adverse drug reactions by 30%.

The Wentworth-Douglass Hospital Pharmacy Department has teamed up with the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) to implement pharmacogenomic services as part of their Pharmacogenomics Accelerator Program. We are looking forward to expanding our patient services with the help of this program.

Wentworth-Douglass is proud to do our part to make sure ADEs off the top 10 leading causes of death list.

If you have any questions about pharmacogenomics or are eager to learn more, please contact Suzanne Stevens (Suzanne.Stevens@wdhospital.org) or Elizabeth Snarr (Elizabeth.snarr@wdhospital.org).