The wrong medicine could do more harm than good. A statistic from the
Institute of Medicine shows that may happen more often than you may
think. Now a national organization and a local hospital are trying to
prevent medication errors.
There are more than 10,000 prescription drugs on the market and more
than 300,000 over the counter medications. So, choosing the right one,
at times, can be tricky.
Vanderbilt's Dr Kevin Johnson says each year, around 1.5 million
people are harmed by medication errors. That's why he and several
other doctors spent six years working with the Institute of Medicine
studying the problem, and they came up with several recommendations,
starting with how prescription drugs are prescribed.
Doctor Johnson said new technology, some of which was developed at
Vanderbilt, provides a new system of safety checks when a doctor is
prescribing medicine to a patient.
Electronic prescription generators eliminate confusion that can be
caused by illegible handwriting. But one of the main reasons for
confusion is some drugs look alike and some of the drug names sound
alike.
That's why the institute recommends that the FDA does more to prevent
that from happening. The study also advises patients to be educated
consumers when buying over the counter drugs and when taking drugs
that a doctor has prescribed.
So, if you don't understand something, ask questions. Doctors say
communication is they key to making the right decision.
The Institute of Medicine is asking the government to pass a law
requiring that all prescriptions be electronically generated by the
year 2010.
Labels: No Prescription, Online Pharmacy, Prescription Drugs
# posted by Network @ 12:18 PM
