Medical Abbreviations For The Use Of Medicines

Medical abbreviations for the use of medicines

Medical abbreviations that shorten a word, dose or medication have evolved over time and today are widespread in the writing of doctors and nurses. These abbreviations represent a danger to communication between health professionals and their patients, putting the health and well -being of these at risk. There are several examples of abbreviations that doctors have prescribed and the pharmacist failedmoney buying a medication that does not help you much. Among the most cited examples we have:

-Dose frequency abbreviation errors: this error is one of the most frequent found in pharmacies and hospitals. To minimize this error it is necessary to use the metric system except therapies that use standard units, such as insulins, vitamins, etc. It is necessary to use Arabic numbers (1,2,3,4, etc.) that it is the international numerical system in order to reduce the margin of error, in none of the cases the use of Roman numbers is allowed. In addition to being necessary, the exact dose will be specified for each administration and not the total daily dose of the medicine.

-Errors on the Administration Route: Administration routes are nothing more than the conduit for the entry of medicines to the body. If the doctor or nurse refers to an abbreviation in the prescription of a medication and the pharmacist in turn fails to understand its acronym are jointly causing a serious error that brings critical consequences for the patient.

Citing an example: who knows how the patient would have used the hypertonic saline solution if the pharmacy label had read ‘Use 4 ml no more than twice a day’ instead of ‘use 4 ml with a nebulizer nebulizer twice a day twice a day?’

The general health personnel (doctor, nurse and pharmacist) as well as patients have the responsibility of preventing these errors mentioned above since they would cause irreparable damage to people’s health. To avoid confusion and reduce the risk of medication errors, ambiguous abbreviation. It is necessary to develop a universal abbreviation system, as well as the metric system to reduce the margin of error. All health professionals should encourage patients to speak when something does not look good with their recipes.