- SUNDAY, Oct. 19 (HealthDay News) — Standardizing the look of
medication labels could significantly decrease costly and potentially
harmful medication errors, a new study suggests.

Anesthesiologists at Penn State Hershey testing a simple color-coding
system in simulated emergency room situations said the universal system
could help prevent some of the 1.5 million adverse drug reactions each
year caused by medication mistakes. These mistakes cost the health-care
industry an estimated $3.5 billion annually.

In the study, which is to be presented Sunday at the annual meeting of
the American Society of Anesthesiologists in Orlando, Fla., volunteer
anesthesiologists, residents and nurses drew medications with different
colored labels at an ever-increasing speed to mimic an emergency
situation. When the color of the label on the syringe matched the color of
the label on the medication bottle, fewer near-mistakes occurred compared
to when the colors didn't match, though the number of actual mistakes was
too low to make a comparison. When peel-off labels were taken off the
bottle and placed on the syringe to be used, errors were reduced and fewer
commands were skipped.

“Many 'high-tech' solutions have been suggested, including use of bar
codes, radiofrequency identification for medications, and computerized
medication administration processes,” researcher Dr. Elizabeth H. Sinz, of
the department of anesthesiology at Penn State Hershey, said in a news
release issued by the society. “But besides their high costs, all of these
methods have flaws that may produce as many errors as they eliminate.
Furthermore, these solutions are often impractical for fast-paced
situations in operating rooms or during emergencies.”

“Simple systems, such as the color-coding methods used in our study,
are more reliable and useable than complex systems,” she said.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more about efforts to curb medication mix-ups.