10027/7344
Bruce L. Lambert
Bruce L.
Lambert
Laura Wallsh Dickey
Laura Wallsh
Dickey
William M. Fisher
William M.
Fisher
Robert D. Gibbons
Robert D.
Gibbons
Swu-Jane Lin
Swu-Jane
Lin
Paul A. Luce
Paul A.
Luce
Conor T. McLennan
Conor T.
McLennan
John W. Senders
John W.
Senders
Clement T. Yu
Clement T.
Yu
Listen carefully: The risk of error in spoken medication orders
University of Illinois at Chicago
2011
Medication error
Patient safety
Drug name confusion
Auditory perception
2011-02-28 00:00:00
Journal contribution
https://indigo.uic.edu/articles/journal_contribution/Listen_carefully_The_risk_of_error_in_spoken_medication_orders/10775924
Clinicians and patients often confuse drug names that sound alike (Hicks, Becker, & Cousins, 2008). We conducted auditory perception experiments to assess the impact of similarity, familiarity, background noise and other factors on clinicians’ and laypersons’ ability to identify spoken drug names. Accuracy increased significantly as the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio increased, as subjective familiarity with the name increased and as the national prescribing frequency of the name increased. For clinicians only, similarity to other drug names reduced identification accuracy, especially when the neighboring names were frequently prescribed. When one name was substituted for another, the substituted name was almost always a more frequently prescribed drug. Objectively measurable properties of drug names can be used to predict confusability. The magnitude of the noise and familiarity effects suggests that they may be important targets for intervention.