{"id":16020,"date":"2017-11-15T21:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T21:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/?p=16020"},"modified":"2026-02-03T17:25:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T17:25:03","slug":"mistakes-were-made","status":"archive","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/mistakes-were-made\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMistakes Were Made\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen people take medicine at home, mistakes happen.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the start of a recent article<\/a> on NPR\u2019s web site, citing a new study that found that levels of medication errors are rising, and that most mistakes were preventable.\u00a0 The researchers used information from U.S. poison control centers, and looked only at errors that happened outside of health care facilities.\u00a0 Another study, cited in The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, found that almost 85% of parents give children the wrong dose of liquid medicines, and more than 2 in 3 of those mistakes are overdoses.\u00a0 \u00a0What is behind these errors, and the increase in their numbers?<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that with increasing levels of conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, there are more people taking medications for them and therefore more chance of error.\u00a0 Another part of the problem is that the units on the prescription (say, milliliters) may not match the units on the measuring device (say, teaspoons); the researchers on parents and liquid medicines found that simply giving parents oral syringes made a huge difference.\u00a0 Furthermore, as medical care becomes more complex, the home care does too.\u00a0 And sometimes it\u2019s been complex all along; consider the calculations that diabetics must make to calculate their insulin, shown in the potentially daunting chart below.<\/p>\n

What can we do to decrease the chance of errors? There are several things for starters!\u00a0 One is to READ THE LABELS.\u00a0 Even pharmacies may make errors (cue the recent story of the man who received and took a yeast infection medication<\/a> rather than a medication for his hiatal hernia\u2014he didn\u2019t look at the bottle BEFORE starting his course).\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Another is to KEEP MEDICATIONS AWAY FROM KIDS.\u00a0 Safe storage can avoid quite a few dangerous situations!\u00a0 This includes child-resistant packaging.\u00a0 Caregivers (of children, older adults, or anyone) should MONITOR MEDICATION USE \u2013it\u2019s easy to make mistakes, and two brains are better than one!\u00a0 Parents and caregivers should write down when doses have been given, to avoid double doses.\u00a0 And, perhaps most importantly, ASK QUESTIONS<\/a>! \u00a0Many of us rush through the part where the pharmacist asks us if we have any questions about our medications, but we should be asking about any of the following<\/a> that we aren\u2019t sure of:<\/p>\n