Little things you can do to reduce medication errors in hospitals

According to Institute of Medicine, an estimated 400,000 medication errors harm hospital patients.

How PassportMD can help to Prevent medication errors and other things you can do to help prevent medication errors:
1. Create and bring a personal health record with you upon admission. PassportMD offers a free service to create your record in minutes.
2. Tell your doctors the medicines, vitamins and supplements that you take to avoid negative interactions. (Or just give him the page from your PassportMD health record that you printed off for free from your computer.)
3. Ask about the drug's purpose and side effects when the doctor prescribes it. Get instructions for taking drugs after you go home.
4. Check the label of IV drug before it is given (or ask a friend or family to do that).
5. Find out how long it should drip before running out.
6. Speak up if you think you are getting the wrong drug, dosage or drip speed.

Many of these tips were generated from the Sun Sentinel Help Team at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/helpteam