In some cases, very important:
Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. The extra medical costs of treating drug-related injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year, and this estimate does not take into account lost wages and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says.
One of the causes?:
Confusion caused by similar drug names accounts for up to 25 percent of all errors reported to the Medication Error Reporting Program operated cooperatively by U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). In addition, labeling and packaging issues were cited as the cause of 33 percent of errors, including 30 percent of fatalities, reported to the program. Drug naming terms should be standardized as much as possible, and all companies should be required to use the standardized terms, the report urges. FDA, AHRQ, and the pharmaceutical industry should collaborate with USP, ISMP, and other appropriate organizations to develop a plan to address the problems associated with drug naming, labeling, and packaging by the end of 2007.
Similar drug names?
Before you jump to the conclusion that I am going to recommend topic maps as a solution, let me assure you I’m not. Nor would I recommend RDF or any other “semantic” technology that I am aware of.
In part because the naming/identification issue here, as in many places, is only part of a very complex social and economic set of issues. To focus on the “easy” part, ;-), that is identification, is to lose sight of many other requirements.
To be effective, a solution can’t only address the issue that your technology or product is good at addressing but it must address other issues as well.
I have written to the National Academies to see if there is an update on this report. This report rather optimistically suggests a number of actions that I find unlikely to occur without government intervention.
PS: Products that incorporate topic maps or RDF based technologies may form a part of a larger solution to medication errors but that isn’t the same thing as being “the” answer.