Journal of general internal medicine
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To describe the association between hospital resource utilization and physicians' knowledge of patient preferences for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) among seriously ill hospitalized adult patients. ⋯ Both physician and patient preferences for CPR influence total hospital resource consumption. Physician misunderstanding of patient preferences to forego CPR was associated with increased use of hospital resources, and could have led to a course of care at odds with patients' expressed preferences in the event of cardiac arrest. Increasing physicians' knowledge of patient preferences, and increasing communication to help patients understand that options for medical care that include foregoing resuscitation efforts, might reduce hospital expenditures for the seriously ill.
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To evaluate the frequency of medication errors using a multidisciplinary approach, to classify these errors by type, and to determine how often medication errors are associated with adverse drug events (ADEs) and potential ADEs. ⋯ Medication errors are common, although relatively few result in ADEs. However, those that do are preventable, many through physician computer order entry.