Abstract

Medical mistakes that include medication errors have raised concerns about medication safety. Due to high consumption of medicines and self-treatment by all, especially the aging population, the issue of proper medication use and safety is at the forefront of public health concerns globally. Each country has a different approach towards medication event monitoring that is compliant with its own health care system. This paper focuses on the efforts and endeavors of some of the countries around the world to create an efficient error reporting systems to ensure public safety. Our analysis indicates that there are established and effective medication vigilance systems in many developed countries. The different countries undertake activities which range from collecting information about prescriptions, surveying physicians about adverse drug events, and conducting sophisticated post-marketing surveillance studies. There is still need for such sophisticated system in India; however recent promising developments are occurring towards building a medication vigilance system. Development of these systems may eventually contribute to a global medication vigilance system, which could reduce concern with medication errors and safety.