Incidence of adverse drug events and medication errors in intensive care units: a prospective multicenter study.

Background: In recent years, medication error has received considerable attention because it causes substantial mortality, morbidity, and additional health care costs. Collecting information in this field depends on the willingness of health professionals to report their errors. Another important point is to identify patients at high risk for an adverse drug event (ADE) to oversee the quality of the entire drug distribution chain, including prescription, drug choice, dispensing, and preparation to the administration of drugs.