One Easy Way to Reduce Look-Alike Medication Mix-Ups
An article published in the April 2008 edition of the American Medical Association News shows 3,170 pairs of prescription drugs have names that look or sound so much alike they can easily lead to serious medication errors.
The report stems from a January 2008 drug review compiled by US Pharmacopeia (USP), a nonprofit organization based in Rockville, Maryland. During a review of 26,000 patient records submitted by 870 health care organizations, USP found the number of similarly-named drug pairs almost doubled between 2004 and 2007.
The anti-bacterial drug Cefazolin was listed as the drug with the greatest number (15) of sound-alike, look-alike medications.
In addition, USP identified 30,000 drug name mix-ups in their report, with 7 medication errors resulting in the patient’s death.
The good news is there’s an easy way everyone can help fix the problem.
Experts believe one of the easiest ways to significantly reduce the danger is for doctors to include the reason for the medication when they fill out a prescription – that way pharmacists can be sure the right medication is being ordered for the right condition. Since drugs that look alike or have similar sounding names are almost never for the same condition, this would make errors much easier to spot. As one drug safety expert explained,
“Errors resulting from look-alike, sound-alike drugs are a problem that spans the entire health care system. By recording and communicating not only the name of the drug, also what it is being used for, prescribers, pharmacists and consumers can work together to dramatically reduce these types of medication errors.”
Darrell Abernathy, MD, PhD
Chief Science Officer, USP
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also working to resolve the confusion by rejecting new drug names that sound too much like medicines they’ve already approved. According to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, FDA officials currently reject 30-40 percent of drug names submitted by pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Patients and their caregivers (especially those with multiple chronic conditions like cancer and heart disease who take more than one prescription) can also help by asking physicians to include medical condition information on the prescription every time they receive a drug.
If you’d like to learn other effective ways to reduce your risk of medication errors, you can read the online pamphlet “Be An Active Member of Your Health Care Team” published by the FDA.
Source: amednews.com
Related Links: healthfinder.gov; American Pharmacists Association
Related Podcast: Taking Medication Safely from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Technorati Tags: patient safety; pharmacology; oncology
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