What are the important components of Medical Prescription? (in 100 words)
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Explanation:
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Prescription Writing 101 (with Example Prescriptions)
I worried so much about prescription writing in my 3rd year of medical school. I probably killed a whole tree tearing up prescriptions that were wrong.
Why did I worry so much about it? Prescription writing was not covered very well at my medical school. And with the amount of material that needs to be covered in those 4 years, I wouldn’t be surprised if prescription writing isn’t covered very well at any medical school.
How to Write a Prescription in 4 Parts
Patient’s name and another identifier, usually date of birth.
Medication and strength, amount to be taken, route by which it is to be taken, and frequency.
Amount to be given at the pharmacy and number of refills.
Signature and physician identifiers like NPI or DEA numbers.
That is the basic outline of how to write a prescription. We’ll be going into the details of each step below. But first, let’s look at why it’s so important to get this skill right.
The Cost of Poor Prescription Writing
Poorly written prescriptions may be one of the main reasons there are so many medication errors today. Look at some of these commonly quoted statistics:
Medication errors occur in approximately 1 in every 5 doses given in hospitals.
One error occurs per patient per day.
Approximately 1.3 million injuries and 7,000 deaths occur each year in the U.S. from medication-related errors.
Drug-related morbidity and mortality are estimated to cost $177 billion in the U.S.
While these are just estimates from various studies and statistical models, the numbers are staggering. If there are 800,000 physicians in the United States, each physician accounts for $221,250