Re: Drug names being mixed up

[Guest guest]

Thanks, . I haven't had this happen so far, but I am always concerned about

it.

Shirley

From: camooweal@... <camooweal@...>

Subject: [ ] Drug names being mixed up

Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2008, 6:19 AM

I only rarely post here, but saw this on another group and thought it would be

good to send in!

[Guest guest]

On a similar note, I was at CVS last week waiting in line to pick up a

prescription. The woman in front of me was handed hers and she looked at it

and said, " This is wrong. I haven't taken this for almost a year! "

The young pharmacist just said...... " Oh, that was what was in the computer. "

If that woman were elderly or had limited vision, she might have just taken

the RX and gone home. Who knows if she would have ever realized it?

Please be careful and check each and every RX as you pick it up.

I have a note on my record that I need regular caps - with RA, it's hard to

open the bottles with the child resistant caps. 8 out of 10 times, they

give me the child resistant cap so I always check now while still in the

store.

Dorothy

[Guest guest]

I used to think that the one pharmacist at the pharmacy I use was nosy until I

heard him explain to another customer how many times he has had prescriptions

phoned in that sound similar and that he makes notes of patients conditions so

that if a " sound alike " is called in or a prescription is illegible, he has a

better idea if it is an error or not. I would love to see the notes he has

listed under me... LOLOLOL It would probably be better to list what I DONT have

than what I do! hee hee

This is also why I only use one pharmacy. I wish I didn't have to use them

SOOOOO much though!

*~ Kami ~*

[ ] Drug names being mixed up

I only rarely post here, but saw this on another group and thought it would be

good to send in!

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON - Take the generic drug clonidine for high blood

pressure? Double-check that you didn't leave the drugstore with

Klonopin for seizures, or the gout medicine colchicine.

Mixing up drug names because they look or sound alike — like this

trio — is among the most common types of medical mistakes, and it

can be deadly. Now new efforts are aiming to stem the confusion, and

make patients more aware of the risk.

[Guest guest]

That's happened to me before as well. After I had my hysterectomy I

became really sick and my Mom was visiting, so she called my doctor

and he phoned in a prescription for Phenigan but when my Mom went to

pick it up she got something different, a med I took awhile ago. She

had no clue so she brought it home. I looked and told her it was the

wrong prescription. She stormed out of the house and I can only

imagine what she said at the pharmacy. She very brittishand her

accent comes out when she's upset. She came back with the correct RX

and the had waived the charges. It's scary.

>

> I only rarely post here, but saw this on another group and thought

it would be good to send in!

>

>

> By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

>

> WASHINGTON - Take the generic drug clonidine for high blood

> pressure? Double-check that you didn't leave the drugstore with

> Klonopin for seizures, or the gout medicine colchicine.

>

> Mixing up drug names because they look or sound alike — like this

> trio — is among the most common types of medical mistakes, and it

> can be deadly. Now new efforts are aiming to stem the confusion,

and

> make patients more aware of the risk.

>

> Nearly 1,500 commonly used drugs have names so similar to at least

> one other medication that they've already caused mix-ups, says a

> major study by the U.S. Pharmacopeia, which helps set drug

standards

> and promote patient safety.

>

> Last week the influential group opened a Web-based tool to let

> consumers and doctors easily check if they're using or prescribing

> any of these error-prone drugs, and what they might confuse it

with.

> Try to spell or pronounce a few on the site — http://www.usp.org —

> and it's easy to see how mistakes can happen. Did you mean the

> painkiller Celebrex or the antidepressant Celexa?

>

> Due out later this fall is a more patient-oriented Web site, a

> partnership of the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication

Practices

> and online health service iGuard.org, that will send users e-mail

> alerts about drug-name confusion.

>

> And the Food and Drug Administration — which currently rejects more

> than a third of proposed names for new drugs because they're too

> similar to old ones — is preparing a pilot program that would shift

> more responsibility to manufacturers to guard against name

> confusion. The goal is to spell out how to better test for

potential

> mix-ups before companies seek approval to sell their products.

>

> " There are so many new drugs approved each year, this problem can

> only get worse, " warns USP vice president Diane Cousins.

>

> At least 1.5 million Americans are estimated to be harmed each year

> from a variety of medication errors, and name mix-ups are blamed

for

> a quarter of them.

>

> Rarely does a company change a drug's name after it hits the

market,

> although it's happened twice since 2005. The Alzheimer's drug

> Reminyl now is named Razadyne, after mix-ups, including two

reported

> deaths, with the old diabetes drug Amaryl. The cholesterol pill

> Omacor is now named Lovaza, after mix-ups with blood-clotting

Amicar.

>

> Doctors' notoriously bad handwriting isn't the only culprit. A

> hurried pharmacist faced with alphabetized bottles on a shelf might

> grab the wrong one.

>

> Nor are computerized prescriptions a panacea. A doctor who e-

> prescribes still can click the wrong row on the alphabetized

screen,

> picking the bone drug Actonel instead of the diabetes drug Actos.

>

> Phone or fax a prescription, and static or smudged ink can turn the

> epilepsy drug Lamictal into the antifungal pill Lamisil.

>

> Harder to measure but perhaps more common: A doctor means to

> prescribe a new drug but spells out a similar-sounding old one out

> of habit. Or the patient misspells or mispronounces one of his

> drugs, and a health worker assumes it's the schizophrenia drug

> Zyprexa, not the antihistamine Zyrtec.

>

> " We've had cases where a health care professional repeats what they

> think the patient's on, and the patient thinks they must know what

> they're talking about and agrees, " says USP's Cousins.

>

> Enter the new Web tool. Cousins advises consumers to check it

> against their current medications, so they know to pay more

> attention to confusing ones at refill time.

>

> Question the pharmacist if the tablets look different than last

> time — it might just be a new generic, or it might be the wrong

drug

> altogether, says pharmacist Marjorie , medication safety

> coordinator at MCGHealth, the Medical College of Georgia's health

> system.

>

> Patients also can ask their doctors to write the diagnosis on the

> prescription, a step that pharmacists told the Institute for Safe

> Medication Practices would help them prevent errors.

>

> " What they consider most important is knowing why the medication is

> used, " says institute president Cohen. " It would go a long

> way to interrupt a lot of these mix-ups. "

>

> Write " for heart " next to " clonipine, " for example, and a

pharmacist

> is less likely to grab similar-sounding gout pills.

>

> But specialists are urging more research on another widely touted

> solution: Writing drug names in an eye-catching mix of upper- and

> lower-case letters. It sometimes helps but can backfire, warns Dr.

> Ruth S. Day, director of Duke University's medical cognition

> laboratory. She found users of a heart drug got even more confused

> with it was written NIFEdepine — because the change made them

> pronounce it " KNIFE-duh-peen " instead of " nie-FEH-duh-peen. "

>

>