The Critical Nature of Labeling in Healthcare Pharmacy

About a decade ago, Consumer Reports took an in-depth look at the effectiveness of prescription drug labels applied by five national chain pharmacies. Their investigation was prompted by widespread reporting on medication errors, including a report from the Institute of Medicine that concluded that about 1.5 million preventable medication errors occur each year in the United States, and roughly one-third of those errors occur outside of hospitals, where patients must rely upon their own ability to follow the instructions on their medication containers.[1] Consumer Reports found a...