The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP)
Ambiguous medical notations are one of the most common and preventable causes of medication errors (Grissinger & Kelly, 2005). Drug names, dosage units, and directions for use should be written clearly to minimize confusion. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and the Food and Drug Administration recommend that error-prone abbreviations are considered whenever medical information is communicated (Institute for Medical Safety, 2012).
Medication errors result in thousand of adverse drug events, deaths, and preventable reactions every year (Grissinger & Kelly, 2005). Healthcare personnel, IMSP, the pharmaceutical industry, and The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are some of the groups responsible for determining how these medication errors occur and designing strategies to reduce these errors (Institute for Medical Safety, 2012).
ISMP is a nonprofit organization made up of nurses, pharmacist, and physicians. IMSP was founded in 1944 and are dedicated in educating and increasing awareness of medication error prevention and safety measures (About ISMP, 2012). They base their non-punitive initiatives on five key areas: analysis, communication, cooperation, education, and knowledge (About ISMP, 2012). The IMSP get their data by healthcare professionals reporting so that they can assist in learning and understanding the causes of the error and everything is confidential (About ISMP, 2012).
IMSP Objectives
The objective of the ISMP is to help the healthcare providers clarify any order that is not clearly legible or obvious especially with error-prone abbreviations, dose designations, and making sure that orders with abbreviations are clarified and written out completely, and verbal orders are read back, repeated if misunderstood, and spelled out (About ISMP, 2012). Also to hold webinar educational programs and medication safety