Abstract
The existence of confusing drug names is one of the most common causes of medication errors. There are many types of medication errors: wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong route of administration, wrong patient etc. Misreading medication names that look similar is a common mistake. These look-alike medication names may also sound alike and can lead to errors associated with verbal prescriptions. Similar sounding drugs may produce confusion and may lead to unintended interchange of drugs causing harm to patients or even patient death. The main aim of the study was to evaluate medication errors related to look alikesound alike drug names and to find out the strategies to prevent these medication errors.J Enam Med Col 2015; 5(2): 110-117
Highlights
Medication names that look similar or sound similar have been identified as a potential source of error in healthcare systems
Medications for which generic or trade names of the product sounds similar in the spoken or written words are categorized as sound-alike drugs
Look-alike and sound-alike drug names can lead to the unintended interchange of drugs that can result in patient injury or death.[1]
Summary
Medication names that look similar or sound similar have been identified as a potential source of error in healthcare systems. Medication errors involving LASA drug names mix-up can cause serious patient harm. Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm, while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems including: prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use”.12. 25% of errors reported to national medication error reporting programs result from confusion with drug names that look or sound alike.[13]. A list of JCAHO-identified name pairs that have been reported to PA-PSRS:
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