Magnification to avoid medication errors.

Abstract

Medication errors are the most common errors harming at least 1.5 million people every year.[1,2] Medication errors were estimated to account for 7000 deaths in the USA in 1993.[3] The reasons for misidentification of a drug can be - look alike/sound alike drugs, syringe swap, confusing, inaccurate, or incomplete drug labels, small print, damaged labels, poor background colour, etc.[2] Cognitive impairment with small prints increases with age. Forty percent of young adults and 96% of older adults reported need for glasses. With this in mind, we decided to study the accuracy of drug label identification by staff in operating theatres and Intensive Care Units (ICU).