Educational Campaign Targets Ambiguous Medical Abbreviations
By Christina Orlovsky, senior staff writer
In recent years, the health care industry has taken numerous steps to improve patient safety and reduce risks associated with medications and hospitalizations. One step, advocated by organizations from the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, is to eliminate the usage of ambiguous abbreviations in medication orders.
In May 2005, the Joint Commission finalized its “Do not use” list as part of its National Patient Safety Goal to “standardize a list of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols that are not to be used throughout the organization.” Symbols such as “<” and “>” were to be eliminated, in addition to abbreviations for all drug names and the abbreviations “cc” and “µg.”
In Nov. 2005, the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) took its efforts toward reducing medication errors due to unclear abbreviations one step further when it announced a partnership with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to launch a comprehensive education campaign to eliminate medication order ambiguities.
Expanding on the list created by the Joint Commission, the ISMP list includes abbreviations, symbols and dose designations reported to the organization by the Medication Errors Reporting Program, operated by the ISMP in conjunction with the United States Pharmacopeia, the official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, dietary supplements and other health care products manufactured and sold in the United States. The Medication Errors Reporting Program is a confidential, voluntary program that allows health care professionals and consumers to report errors, near-errors or hazardous conditions.
The ISMP’s comprehensive list includes the abbreviation, intended meaning, misinterpretation and correction, indicating that the abbreviations should never be used.
“This includes internal communications, telephone/verbal prescriptions, computer-generated labels, labels for drug storage bins, medication administration records, as well as pharmacy and prescriber computer order entry screens,” the list reads.
This spring, the ISMP and FDA will launch its educational campaign, recommending that its list be referenced whenever and wherever medical information is being communicated.
At Scripps Green Hospital, in San Diego, California, efforts are already underway to alert staff members to the dangers of confusing abbreviations. The words “Eliminating Dangerous Abbreviations” are boldly displayed on computer screens throughout nursing stations.
“It is helpful to reduce medication errors,” explained Tara Mildenberger, RN, a travel nurse in the telemetry unit of Scripps Green Hospital. “For example, instead of writing on a chart the letters U or u, we are to write out the word ‘unit’.”
According to the ISMP, making changes like these in the health care setting is critical to saving the lives of the more than 7,000 patients each year who die from medication errors.
“The practice of using medical notations that are frequently misinterpreted is a key example of an area where education of health care practitioners, the pharmaceutical industry and others involved in medication use could help save lives,” the organization stated.
Resources:
Institute for Safe Medication Practices
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
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