Reducing Medication Errors
- John N. Strand, MD
-
Anaheim, Calif
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- medication errors
- pharmaceutical services
To the Editor: In his Clinical Crossroads article about medication errors, Dr Bates1 states that the "key parameters" of prescribing are drug name, dose, route, and frequency. To help reduce medication errors, 2 more components need to be added: duration of treatment and diagnosis. If a diagnosis of "human immunodeficiency virus infection" had been indicated on the prescription, pharmacy staff would have noticed that the patient, Ms K, had been prescribed the wrong medications. Adding duration of treatment and diagnosis would also provide an opportunity for physicians to double-check for errors when writing prescriptions.
This labeling of duration and diagnosis would help the physician during a patient's initial visit. It is helpful to know why patients are taking medications. Digoxin, for example, can be used either for cardiac irregularities or congestive heart failure, and some anticonvulsant medications can be used for behavior problems or seizures. The original prescribing physicians …
