Stamp ‘em for safety
Here’s an idea. I’m sure you’ve read on more than one occasion that medication errors continue to be a source of patient morbidity. Hospitals have instituted a variety of procedures to cut down on errors, but what about the poor schlub self-administering meds at home. Lots of folks take multiple meds, and you know what, they’re damn hard to tell apart from each other, especially when generic meds are inter-mixed. It’s easy to miss a dose of one and double the dose of another, simply due to product confusion.
So, here’s a simple, no-added cost approach that might reduce risk a bit: stamp them with dosage (and name when practical). Innovators tend to brand their capsules and coated tablets with the drug name and sometimes the dosage, but you’re lucky to get even a brand icon on a tablet, and good luck remembering which icon goes with which drug name. Generic houses rarely include either the generic name or dosage on anything they sell, imprinted or stamped, opting instead for company and product codes, and they love those white, round tablets that all look exactly alike.
If both innovators and generic houses agreed to imprint the brand (or generic) name and dosage on suitable substrates and to stamp at least the dosage on tablets and other compacted forms, it might ease the confusion. I know that if I saw a big “20″ on one round white tablet and a big “80″ on another it would alert me that they were different drugs, and if I were fortunate enough to remember which drug I took in 20-mg doses and which I took in 80-mg doses, I’d be all set.
It’s easy to do, it costs no more than stamping or impriniting a code, and its common sense. You don’t need a regulation to compel you to do it; just do it.
