December 14, 2011, an online article in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine titled "Emergency Department Visits; we are not prepared" by Dr. C. P. Davis shows data that supports the contention that most people are poorly prepared for what may be a life-changing experience - an Emergency Department visit. The data indicates that 99% of patients have no effective advance directive available, 77% do not have complete knowledge of their medical conditions, about half (46%) either don't know or only have an incomplete list of their medications.In addition,32% have incomplete or incorrect information about their surgical trearments, and 37% expected others (the ER staff, their doctors office or their daughters or wife to supply their medical information. Revisions of the patient's medical information were common, even for the potentially dangerous problem of allergies to medicine; 17% of the patients revised their allergy list while in the ER undergoing evaluation and treatment. The publication discusses some of the reasons and ways to resolve the problems.
Results from the NEJM, 365:2002, 2011 state the following: On the basis of 5077 cases identified in our sample, there were an estimated 99,628 emergency hospitalizations (95% confidence interval [CI], 55,531 to 143,724) for adverse drug events in U.S. adults 65 years of age or older each year from 2007 through 2009. Nearly half of these hospitalizations were among adults 80 years of age or older (48.1%; 95% CI, 44.6 to 51.6). Nearly two thirds of hospitalizations were due to unintentional overdoses (65.7%; 95% CI, 60.1 to 71.3). Four medications or medication classes were implicated alone or in combination in 67.0% (95% CI, 60.0 to 74.1) of hospitalizations: warfarin (33.3%), insulins (13.9%), oral antiplatelet agents (13.3%), and oral hypoglycemic agents (10.7%). High-risk medications were implicated in only 1.2% (95% CI, 0.7 to 1.7) of hospitalizations.
Consequently, the knowledge of all medications by patient and caregivers is important for emergency care.