1. Posted by A Yahoo! Health User on Sat, Mar 14, 2009, 9:19 am PDT

This actually happened to me, We wound up giving my son his medication backwards for a week without knowing. He take Metadate and Methylin. The pharmacist mislabeled the bottles because as she said they look and sound so much alike. Be careful, and ask your doctor what the pills should look like, thats what helped fix our probem.

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2. Posted by A Yahoo! Health User on Sat, Mar 14, 2009, 2:39 pm PDT

Perhaps requiring the use of generic names (in and outside of hospitals) would help. I have seen many near-misses in my career due to confusion regading the brand names. And it's not just doctors that don't know generic names - nurses are just a guilty on that count. Craig Rowe, RN, BSN

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3. Posted by A Yahoo! Health User on Sat, Mar 14, 2009, 6:16 pm PDT

Shame on the author for not mentioning the most important and easiest thing you can do to avoid a prescription error: ASK YOUR DOCTOR FOR AN E-PRESCRIPTION! E-prescriptions travel directly from the physician's computer to your pharmacist's computer. There is no handwriting to interpret, ergo, less chance for error.

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4. Posted by A Yahoo! Health User on Sat, Mar 14, 2009, 9:46 pm PDT

Unfortunately "E-Prescriptions" do not eliminate all human error from the equation. There have been many instances where mix-ups have still occurred with this method for the same reasons mentioned in the article. There are still humans at both ends of the "E-Prescription", starting with the one that has to prescribed the correct medication in the first place.

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5. Posted by A Yahoo! Health User on Sun, Mar 15, 2009, 9:23 am PDT

falconer, obviously nothing can guarantee with 100% certainty that a human error will be prevented, however your claim of "many instances" is an exaggeration. The majority of e-prescriptions are dispensed without incident. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report titled "Reducing Medication Errors" specifically recommended e-prescribing as a national priority to reduce medication errors. Numerous studies have shown that e-prescribing reduces medication errors; to cite just a few: * According to the Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL), use of electronic prescribing systems with a network connection to pharmacy and advanced decision-support capabilities could help prevent 130,000 life-threatening medication errors annually. * Statistics from the Henry Ford Health System based on its use of e-prescribing: Reduced Adverse Drug Events Hospital Admits 2% of hospital admissions due to ADEs (50% of published research) 33% of these avoided with ePrescribing Emergency Department Visits 1% of ED visits due to ADEs (50% of published research) 33% of these avoided with e-prescribing * A recent survey of physicians in the Southeast Michigan ePrescribing Initiative (SEMI) program revealed that improved patient safety and quality of care topped the list of key benefits of the technology. According to the survey, conducted by HaldyMcIntosh & Associates: Three out of four prescribers believe strongly that ePrescribing improves safety for their patients. Nearly 70 percent of respondents say it improves the quality of care. The study also found that nearly 65 percent of physicians changed at least one prescription in response to a safety alert that warned of potentially harmful drug-drug interactions and drug-allergy risks at the time of prescribing. * According to a recent survey of participants in the Massachusetts eRx Collaborative – an e-prescribing adoption effort headed by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), Tufts Health Plan and Neighborhood Health Plan (NHP) – approximately 104,000 electronic prescriptions were changed due to drug safety alerts in 2007. This represents 2.1 percent of total electronic prescriptions that were changed or canceled due to drug messaging. This number increased after mid-year, and remained steady for the latter half of the year at around 2.5 percent. The highest number of electronic prescriptions that were changed or canceled in a single month was 9,960. E-prescribing is not just about improving script legibility (although that certainly is one obvious benefit). It empowers physicians to make more informed prescribing decisions. It also saves time at the pharmacy which allows the pharmacist to spend more time with patients.

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