THURSDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has launched a national health professional education campaign to eliminate a common but preventable cause of medication errors: unclear and potentially confusing abbreviations written by health care professionals and others.
Medication errors result in more than 7,000 deaths per year, according to the Institute of Medicine. "Some abbreviations, symbols and dose designations are frequently misinterpreted and lead to mistakes that result in patient harm," FDA Acting Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D., said in a statement.
Examples of unclear abbreviations include the letter "U," which can be mistaken for zero or the number four; the letters "IU," which can be mistaken for IV or the number 10; and "MS04" and "MgS04," which can be confused with one another. To prevent such errors, the FDA and ISMP recommends writing out "U" as "unit," "IU" as "international unit," and "MS04" and "MgS04" as "morphine sulfate" or "magnesium sulfate," respectively.
The campaign aims to eliminate the use of such abbreviations from written medication orders, computer-generated labels and medication administration records, pharmacy or prescriber computer-order entry screens and commercial medication labeling, packaging and advertising.
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