how to -watch medications
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Check out the YouTube video from the Families Launching Action Against Medication Errors organization.
Find uses, warnings, side effects and interactions to medications. Search by name or medical condition for prescription drugs or over-the-counter medications.
Information from The Joint Commission on avoiding medication errors.
Avoid Medication Errors
There are 7,000 deaths a year in the United States alone that are associated with medication errors, according to To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System by The National Academy Press.
Here are some ways to prevent mistakes:
Here are some ways to prevent mistakes:
- Keep an updated list of all medications and review this list with your parent’s doctors and pharmacist.
- Here’s an idea from the FDA: You should ask the doctor when he or she is prescribing meds to give you the correct spelling for the medication, dosage, directions and special instructions, and write it down right there in the doctor’s office. Take those notes with you to the pharmacist to confirm that the medication is correct. This helps ensure that the pharmacist is reading the doctor’s handwriting properly, and it also assures that there is no confusion between two medications with similar names.
- The Joint Commission suggests that the name and birthdate on hospital wristbands be double-checked by the nursing staff before any medication or treatment is administered. Your parent should also check his or her wristband as soon as it's put on.
- Check out the Beers Criteria - a list compiled by geriatrician Mark Beers - to learn more about special medication considerations for people over 65.
If you see a change in your parent's comfort or behavior, be sure to ask the doctor or nurse if there's been any change to your parent's medications?
"How Two Rights Can Make a Wrong" by Howard Markel, MD, The New York Times
"Patient Protection" by Tina Peng, Newsweek.com
"Just What the Doctor Ordered? Not Exactly" by Jane E. Brody, The New York Times
"Patient Protection" by Tina Peng, Newsweek.com
"Just What the Doctor Ordered? Not Exactly" by Jane E. Brody, The New York Times
