MEDICATIONS: HOW TO REDUCE MEDICATION ERRORS

Medication errors can occur at any point in the process of providing drugs to patients — prescribing, documenting, dispensing and administering. Many factors can contribute to medication errors, including poor handwriting, similar sounding or looking drug names, drug abbreviations, misinterpretation of labeling or packaging, and incorrect administration. Similar drug names, either written or spoken, account for approximately 15 percent of all reports to the U.S. Pharmacopoeia Medication Errors Reporting program.

There are several risk reduction strategies that can help you as a patient:

· Ask your doctor to write the purpose of the medication on the prescription to provide the pharmacist with additional information — this will help to lessen of the wrong medication being dispensed and will enable the pharmacist to spot duplicative therapy from multiple providers.

· When given a new prescription, ask your doctor to clearly repeat the drug name and provide correct spelling.

· Ask your physician for written information about any prescription drug, including both the generic and brand names.

· Do not store problem medications (medications that may have a similar name to other prescription drugs) alphabetically by name. Store identified medications out of order or in an alternate location.

· Always tell your doctor and pharmacist about any over-the-counter medications or supplements you are taking since they may interact with prescription medications.

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