Software Helps Clinicians Avoid Confusing Drug Errors

A mobile and online clinical solution will include crucial clarification for drugs that look and sound alike, helping doctors avoid errors linked to drug name confusion.

The Epocrates Essentials deluxe software suite already includes an integrated drugs, diseases, and diagnostics database; a medical dictionary; coding software that provides a guide to more than 20,000 International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) and current procedural terminology (CPT) codes, with 3 instant ways to look up a code and a favorites feature; medical guidelines and reference tables; a drug interaction checker and intra-venous (IV) compatibility checker; more than 30 medical formulas; more than 100 mobile Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses, with new courses added frequently; and other various add-ons.

Drugs are classified by a class and subclass structure by a combination of both functional and pharmacologic classes. This design offers speed of access (since limiting the search to only two levels allows more rapid access to the information) and a broader appeal to most users, by using both pharmacologic and functional terms to encompass the most common thought processes employed when users access information by class. Currently, one in four U.S. physicians use Epocrates' software to help reduce drug errors by checking accurate dosing or identifying potential interactions and side effects before prescribing.

Additionally, Epocrates (San Mateo, CA, USA) has begun working with the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP, Rockville, MD, USA) to incorporate warnings about the more than 3,100 drug pairs the USP identified that look and sound alike into its free drug databases. According to USP's Medmarx, the largest database of medication errors in the United States, look-alike and sound-alike drugs are among the main causes of medication errors. Between 2003 and 2006, more than 1,400 different drugs were involved in errors linked to similar brand names and generic names. Most notably, each of the top 10 most prescribed drugs in the U.S. is commonly confused with at least one other drug.


Related Links:
Epocrates
U.S. Pharmacopeia