USP looks to halt medication mix-ups

Executive Summary

A "Drug Error Finder" searchable database of nearly 1,500 commonly used products has been established to avoid look-alike and sound-alike medication errors, the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention announces Aug. 25. The Drug Error Finder generates a list of medications that have been confused with the product name being searched and allows users to see the severity of the reported errors, ranging from Category A for "potential error" to Category I for "death." The public database targets drugs commonly reported for brand or generic name errors in the U.S. since 2003, based on information collected in USP's Medmarx database. FDA efforts to minimize name confusion could also be aided by provisions in the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 and the reauthorization of user fees (1"The Pink Sheet," Feb. 18, 2008, p. 20)