Team work needed to stop drug errors

Dallas Morning News: Do you carry a complete list of your medications with you to every doctor and pharmacy visit?
If not, you should.
You also should talk openly with your doctors and pharmacist about your medications -- how to take them, what side effects and results to expect and how they might interact with your other drugs, vitamins and food.
You should do so because, according to a recent report by the Institute of Medicine, medication errors are shockingly common, harming at least 1.5 million Americans every year and killing thousands.
That's unacceptable. With more than 4 billion prescriptions written every year in the United States, Americans must be able to trust that their medications will help them, not hurt them. Fixing the problems, as the report noted, will require significant changes from many players -- including greater awareness by you, the patient.
Standard drug labels
The FDA must clear up confusing drug names and abbreviations. Last month, the agency finished work on standardizing drug labels, a big step forward.
Health care providers must boost efforts to move from paper to computer. Area hospitals already are laying the foundations: Baylor Health Care System has a robotic pharmacy. Presbyterian Hospital of Plano's emergency room uses a data system that alerts staff to drug errors. And the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas has been rolling out electronic records at its outpatient clinics that can be accessed by patients and doctors; it debuts at its hospitals this fall.
Doctors in smaller practices, however, need help moving into the digital age.