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July 2011 Vol. 2 Medication Safety Bulletin Next Issue: November 2011 Look-alike & Sound-alike (LASA) Medication Names I Announcement : t is not surprising that many drug names sound and look alike. Frontline colleagues may easily be confused with unclear handwritten prescriptions because of the similarity in name or appearance. It is one of the most common causes of medication error and is of concern worldwide. - In order to enrich the educational content related to medication safety, the sharing on medication incidents and consolidated statistics will be published in HA Risk Alert (HARA). Contributing factors to confusion: - This bulletin will be published half-yearly in November and May from next issue onwards. Illegible handwriting ● Incomplete knowledge of drug names ● Newly available products ● Similar packaging or labeling ● Similar clinical use Similar strengths, dosage forms, frequency of administration ● “Tall man” lettering is a method for differentiating the unique letter characters of similar drug names known to have been confused with one another. Highlighting a unique portion of a drug name with upper case letters can draw attention to the dissimilarities between look-alike drug names, making them less prone to mix-up. In US, several studies have shown that the utilization of tall man lettering is effective in reducing errors caused by look-alike names. Standardization of TALL man lettering for LASA names Inside this issue: Sharing of good practices to manage LASA drugs ● Use of TALL man lettering for look-alike drug names: P.2 Sharing of potential risk P.3 found in HA hospitals Similar packing of 500ml dextrose IV infusion bottles: D5 vs D50 Test your knowledge abbreviations used in prescription P.3 Sharing of globally reported medication errors - FDA alert on confusion between Risperidone (Risperdal® ) & Ropinirole (Requip® ) P.4 “High Alert Medications” to replace “High Risk Medications” P.4 Answers to the test P.4 A s one of the difficulties with the use of tall man letters include inconsistent application in hospitals and lack of standardization regarding which name pairs to include as well as which letters to be in uppercase, the HA Medication Safety Committee (MSC) has compiled and standardized 11 sets of generic drug names. This list has made reference to both the overseas recommendations and locally reported mixup drug names. Colleagues are advised to standardize and apply the TALL man letters to the labeling of drug storage locations such as drug shelves at pharmacy and drug cupboards in wards. The tall man parts are preferably in bold and colored letters for more prominent illustration. MSC will review and update the list annually. Colleagues are recommended to be vigilant on any potential risky pairs and feedback to MSC via cluster representatives for consideration. Page 2 Medication Safety Bulletin Sharing of good practices to manage LASA drugs M SC had been conducting hospital visits to different hospitals since Feb 2009 and the first round visit of 7 clusters had been completed. During the hospital visits, MSC observed many good practices undertaken by hospitals to enhance medication safety, some of which are effective in tackling problems caused by similar drug packing or drug names. LASA/ Medication Safety Notice Board - To alert colleagues on LASA drugs and drugs with appearance changed recently Prompting of LASA warning in pharmacy system — CARS (by item endorsement function) E.g. An alert box of “LASA Warning: amloDIPINE” is prompted whenever the item code “AMLO01” is entered into the CARS Use of TALL man letters when labeling at pharmacy and in ward Reminder on drug shelf to check the drug label Use of “LASA drug” alert labels during dispensing Separation of drug storage for different strength products/ LASA drugs Page 3 Sharing of potential risk found in HA hospitals - Similar packing of 500ml dextrose IV infusion bottles : D5 vs D50 L abels of various strengths and volumes of dextrose IV infusion bottles (i.e. D5, D20 and D50) supplied by a drug company have been changing in phases since May 2010. Subsequent to the change, a number of medication incidents and near misses have been reported in hospitals recently due to mix-up of D5 and D50 preparations. NEW packing labels — 500ml Dextrose 5% vs 500ml Dextrose 50% Recommendations: 1. Avoid keeping both strengths (5% and 50%) with the same volume as ward stock. Review the ward stock list and consider replacing the 500ml D50 with 20ml D50 if possible. 2. Separate the storage of similar packing bottles at pharmacy and in ward. Place a warning labels to remind staff to be vigilant when picking these items. 3. Educate and alert staff the importance of medication safety related to label design and label change. Education poster on new product labels provided by the drug company Test your knowledge - abbreviations used in prescription Q1: What does “mane” stand for? Q2: Can you differentiate among “qid, qod, qds and qd”? Q3: Which of the above abbreviation(s) is(are) not allowed to be used in HA (Answers are at the back of this page) Page 4 Medication Safety Bulletin Sharing of globally reported medication errors - FDA alert on confusion between Risperidone (Risperdal® ) & Ropinirole (Requip® ) R ecently, FDA evaluated the medication errors relating to the confusion between risperidone (Risperdal ® ) and ropinirole (Requip® ) obtained from their Adverse Event Reporting System database. In some cases, patients who took the wrong medication resulted in adverse events and were hospitalized. Adverse events resulting from administering wrong medication included confusion, lethargy, ataxia, hallucinations, tiredness, dizziness, tingling, numbness and altered mental status. Possible factors to the confusion: 1. Similarities of both the brand and generic names 2. Illegible handwriting on prescription 3. Overlapping product characteristics, such as the drug strengths, dosage forms, and dosing intervals 4. Similarities of the container labels and carton packaging (for generic products by the same manufacturer) Recommendations: 1. Prescribers to write/ print the drug name clearly on the prescription/ MAR 2. Pharmacists to confirm/ clarify the drug name with the prescribers if the prescription is not legible 3. Pharmacy staff to physically separate the stocks of these two drugs on the shelf 4. Pharmacists to counsel patients about the prescribed medication, make sure patient understands the purpose of taking the medication to avoid prescribing/ dispensing incorrect medication “High Alert Medications” to replace “High Risk Medications” H igh risk medications are medications that have the highest risk of causing injury when misused. Errors with these products are not necessarily more common, but the consequences are clearly more devastating. In order to align with the term used in overseas countries, the term “High Alert Medications” would be used in the future communications instead of the term “High Risk Medications”. 1. Concentrated 2. Cytotoxic 3. Drugs commonly associated with electrolytes chemotherapy drug allergies e.g. Penicillin, aspirin, 9. Narcotics/ NSAIDs & inotropes High “Alert” Medications opioids 8. Insulins 4. Vasopressors 7. Oral hypoglycaemics 5. Anticoagulants including 6. Neuromuscular heparin blocking agents Q3: “qod” and “qd” are not allowed to be used in HA (refer to HA “Do Not Use” list) Answers daily qd Every other day qod Four times a day Q2: qid/ qds In the morning Q1: mane Abbreviation Intended meaning qod or qds Spell out “daily” Spell out “every other day” q.d. (daily) Use qid instead of qds qds can be mistaken as qd Tomorrow morning Possible confusion This Bulletin is prepared by the Chief Pharmacist’s Office, HAHO Recommendations