Development of a list of look-alike drug names with recommended tall man letters

Abstract

Objective: To develop a list of look-alike drug names with tall man letters, which will facilitate and standardize the implementation of this technique in safety practices designed to reduce errors caused by look-alike names.

Material and methods: Two structured surveys were carried out. The first survey included 46 pairs, groups, or individual look-alike drug names with tall man letters from the lists established by the FDA, ISMP and CAPCA/ISMP-Canada, and 32 selected from ISMP-Spain and the COF Council database. The second survey included 27 proposals made by those respondents who completed the first survey and 11 from the ISMP updated list. Participants were asked about the usefulness and current implementation of the technique. Ninety pharmacists from different hospitals participated in the first survey and 89 in the second.

Results: The list of look-alike drug names with tall man letters which has been developed includes 107 names structured into 44 pairs or groups. Of the respondents, 93.3% felt that this technique should be implemented for identifying medications, not only on pharmaceutical industry labels (91.1%) but also in other places where drug names appear, such as computerized prescription screens (90%), pharmacy system screens (82.2%), automated dispensing cabinet screens (81.1%), labels for pharmacy preparations and shelves, etc. Only 9 hospitals (10%) were using this technique.

Conclusions: The availability of this list of look-alike drug names for which tall man lettering is recommended may encourage the use of this technique for differentiating names in Spain where it is currently not greatly used.