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Medication errors: Cut your risk with these tips
Content
What exactly are medication errors?
How do medication errors happen?
Know how to prevent medication errors
Participate in medication reconciliation
Avoid these mistakes
Make safety a habit
A final word on medication errors
How do medication errors happen?
Medication errors can happen to anyone in any place, including your own home and at the doctor's office, hospital, pharmacy and senior living facility. Kids are especially at high risk for medication errors because they typically need different drug doses than adults.
Knowing what you're up against can help you play it safe. The most common causes of medication errors are:
- Poor communication between your doctors
- Poor communication between you and your doctors
- Drug names that sound alike and medications that look alike
- Medical abbreviations
