Pharmacists must take responsibility for ensuring patients receive the correct medicines when they dispense look-alike and sound-alike drugs, Australian experts believe.
A commentary, published in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, said while there were a number of systems that could be used to minimise the risk of look-alike and sound-alike (LASA) medicine dispensing errors, human factors were the main cause of dispensing errors.
The article noted one-in-four medication errors in Australia were attributed to similarities between drug names and/or look-alike packaging.
While technological solutions including font variation, automated alerts and barcode scanners could help reduce potential dispensing errors for LASA medicines, the authors said it was concerning that these errors had a common human element, and were preventable through vigilance and...
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