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Look-alike or sound-alike (LASA) medication names may be mistaken for each other, e.g. mercaptamine and mercaptopurine. If an error of this sort is not intercepted, it can reach the patient and may result in harm. LASA errors occur because of shared linguistic properties between names (phonetic or orthographic), and potential for error is compounded by similar packaging, tablet appearance, tablet strength, route of administration, or therapeutic indication. Estimates of prevalence range from 0.00003% to 0.0022% of all prescriptions, 7% of near misses, and between 6.2% and 14.7% of all medication error events. Solutions to LASA errors can target people or systems, and include reducing interruptions or distractions during medication administration, typographic tweaks, such as selective capitalization (Tall Man letters) or boldface, barcoding, and computerized physician order entry.

Original publication

DOI

10.1111/bcp.14285

Type

Journal article

Journal

Br J Clin Pharmacol

Publication Date

21/03/2020

Keywords

look-alike, medication error, nomenclature, similarity, sound-alike