Teach patients about their medicines to avoid misadventure

The National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS) is urging health professionals to teach patients how to identify the active ingredient in their medicines to avoid mix ups and adverse events.

A recent NPS literature review found 6% of hospitalisations are due to adverse events, which increases to nearly 30% in the elderly. Past studies have confirmed that many hospitalisations due to adverse events could have been avoided if the patient had understood their medicines.

“Some people identify their medicines by colour and shape, which gets them in trouble if they have to switch brands,” NPS chief executive officer, Dr Lynn Weekes said.

“There are numerous anecdotes about patients who thought a different brand was a completely different medicine and took both, or stopped taking the medicine completely because they didn’t know what it was”.

“GPs and pharmacists are trusted experts and are well placed to teach people how to read and understand their medicine labels. To help you do this, NPS has developed several tools that can be used in any pharmacy or GP clinic,” Dr Weekes said.

These include the NPS Medicine Name Finder, which is an online tool that identifies the active ingredient in PBS-listed prescription medicines and their alternate brand names, and a Medicines List.

When a brand name is entered into the NPS Medicine Name Finder, the active ingredient appears and when the active ingredient is entered, all available brand names appear. Users are then prompted to record their medicine details on a downloadable Medicines List or print the information to discuss it with their health professional.

A link is also provided to the Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) leaflet which contains more details about the medicine.

Medicines Lists provide a standard template for recording the necessary information about a patient’s current medicines – names, dosage, dosing frequency and indications – in one simple document they can carry around and update as necessary.

“Demonstrating these tools to your patients will not only ensure they understand what they are taking but also provide a check for the health professional to ensure they know what has been prescribed and dispensed,” Dr Weekes said.

Medicines Lists and the NPS Medicine Name Finder are available to download for free at http://www.nps.org.au/activeingredient

The Medicine Name Finder can also be saved as a Google Gadget for fast, easy use if you have an iGoogle account.