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Related Links: Who Has a Hand in Making Medications Safer and Reducing Medicine Errors? FDA Implements Bar Codes to Reduce Prescription Drug Errors |
You probably are aware that medications can lead to harmful side effects and adverse events, which is why every one wishes and hopes that prescriptions will get safer for the general public. Unfortunately, there are many causes of medication errors and many people who still receive the wrong medication or incorrect dosage of drugs at their pharmacies; however, there are ways in which prescriptions are getting safer.
Some of the ways pharmacy prescriptions are becoming safer for patients include:
- Most doctor’s offices have switched from handwritten prescriptions that were hard for pharmacists to read to electronic prescriptions.
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are analyzing medication packages and drug names to reduce sound-alike or look-alike drug mistakes.
- Barcode technology is being used at hospitals and pharmacies—even compounding pharmacies—to verify the correct medication is being given out and that patients are less likely to receive the wrong medication.
- Pharmacies are using software to help them flag patients’ allergy issues and drug interactions to minimize pharmacy errors
As you can see above, there are many ways prescriptions errors are being reduced. However, technology and new processes can only do so much to stop a prescription error from occurring. When pharmacists fail to check prescriptions, verify a patient’s age and weight, and review current medications patients are taking, consumers may be at risk for prescription errors.
This is why we recommend that you go to the same pharmacy for all your pills, take the pharmacist up on a consultation, communicate with the pharmacist and ask questions about how and when to take the medication, and thoroughly review any medication before taking it. Please share this information on Google Plus with to help others avoid being a victim of pharmacy error.
