• 03
  • February
    2011

Confusion is the cause of many prescription error mistakes in the United States according to a recent report. Medical mistakes are being made because prescription names that look similar and sound similar are causing confusion in hospitals and pharmacies around the country. Interestingly, the rate of prescription errors that occur because of confusion is the highest among prescriptions for children. The research was conducted by the Albany Medical Center in New York.

According to the study, drug error rates in hospitals in the United States occur in three out of 1,000 prescriptions. Most of the confusion that happens with prescriptions is attributed to the names of painkillers that sound similar and look similar. While the prescription error rate for adults was three per 1,000, the prescription drug error rate for children was higher. The rate of potentially serious prescription errors was lower than the general rate of error at 0.63 per 1,000 prescriptions.

The highest error rates were among drugs that are not usually prescribed. Examples of such drugs are benzocaine and buprenorphine. Benzocaine is a topical pain reliever and buprenorphine is used to treat drug addictions. The information for the study came from a database of pharmacist detected and prevented prescribing errors, and researchers reviewed 714,290 painkiller prescriptions.

Researchers found errors were caused by improper drug therapy knowledge, failure to change therapy based on specific patient information, mistakes in dose calculations, and wrong use of dosage forms. Efforts to correct future mistakes include computerized entry systems, review of prescriptions by pharmacists and nurses and limitation of the number of similar medications.

Source: HealthDay, "Look-and-Sound-Alike names account for many painkiller prescription errors," 2/1/11