Council Releases ASHP-Backed Recommendations On Drug Name Suffixes

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 29 Feb 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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NCCMERP's recently released recommendations for decreasing medication errors associated with non-standardized suffixes used in drug names feature input from ASHP.

ASHP offered input and support to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention's (NCCMERP) recently released recommendations for decreasing medication errors associated with non-standardized suffixes used in drug names.

The recommendations call on practitioners, regulatory agencies and other entities to quickly take steps to prevent errors caused by suffixes, including:

- Encouraging practitioners and consumers to report actual and potential medication errors associated with drug-name suffixes,

- Indicating the drug name, including the suffix, when prescribers order medications,

- Reviewing drug names with suffixes to determine potential errors before the medications are added to hospital formularies, and

- Evaluating proposed drug product names that contain suffixes before they are approved for marketing to determine the potential for errors.

The recommendations are the result of a longstanding effort by a group of interested stakeholders that began with a roundtable meeting held in 2005. ASHP and the ASHP Research and Education Foundation helped fund the meeting and have provided ongoing expert guidance.

NCCMERP is an interdisciplinary effort among health care organizations to promote medication safety. ASHP is one of 23 consumer and health care groups that make up the organization.

American Society of Health-System Pharmacists

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