Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, examined records of 200,000 U.S. deaths from medication errors (from 1983 to 2004) and found that the highest rate of increase in these deaths -- a staggering 3,196 percent! -- was for deaths at home from combining prescription drugs with alcohol and/or street drugs. This issue received national attention in January after the accidental prescription overdose death of actor Heath Ledger at age 28.

By contrast, fatal medication errors in hospitals where alcohol or street drugs were not involved showed the smallest rate of increase over the two decades among the types of deaths studied: 5 percent.

Hospital patients are being sent home earlier than they were a few years ago and are told to take medicines at home as part of their continuing recuperation process thereby creating more possibility of errors, but the study also points up the serious on-going issue of individuals using medicines which were prescribed for other members of their family.

Read the full report in the July 28 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.