Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Answers and Rationales to Safe Medication Principles

1. ANSWER B

B: Misreading abbreviations results in many medication errors. Physicians should always spell out abbreviations to avoid confusion.

2. TRUE

True: Using the full brand and generic names of drugs helps avoid confusion between look-alike drug names. For example, medication mix-ups have occurred between Hespan and Heparin, Celebrex and Cerebyx, and Xeloda and Xenical.

3. C

C: Physicians should always give patients specific instructions on the drugs being prescribed to help reinforce proper medication use. After explaining the medications and their side effects, physicians should ask patients to repeat the instructions.

4. FALSE

False: Physicians should indicate the purpose of the prescription, unless deemed inappropriate (i.e., certain diseases and medications may warrant confidentiality).

5. C

C: According to the U.S. Pharmacopeia’s Medication Errors Reporting Program, misinterpreted orders due to prescribers’ illegible handwriting account for 14% of medical errors.

6. TRUE

True: When the abbreviation Q.D. is written, the period after the Q has often been misread as an I. This mistake results in a patient overdose. Because many abbreviations are misread, it is best to write everything out.

7. A

A: Writing out numbers/quantities helps prevent alterations by patients to the prescription. Using numerals makes it easier for patients to add numbers before or after the original numeral.

8. FALSE

False: Surprise drug interactions can be minimized if physicians know what substances patients are taking. Compiling an accurate medication history includes asking questions about what medications, herbs, vitamins, complementary medicine remedies, alcohol and "recreational" drugs the patient is using.

9. C

C: According to the U.S. Pharmacopeia’s Medication Errors Reporting Program, pairs of look-alike/sound-alike drug names account for 22% of actual or potential medical errors.

10. FALSE

False: Misplaced and/or misread decimal points lead to dosage errors. When writing dosage amounts, physicians should use a leading zero before a decimal point of a fractional number and should NOT use a trailing zero after whole numbers. Therefore, physicians should write "5 mg" and never "5.0 mg

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