Exercise prescription care

It's a matter of trust. Patients trust that their physicians or other caregivers will write prescriptions for the medicine they need and in measures that will be most beneficial for their particular ailment. When patients take the prescription to a pharmacy, they trust the prescription will be filled per the doctor's orders. Caregivers and pharmacists trust that patients will take the medicine as prescribed.

If there's a failing in that chain, patients' health can be imperiled. Just ask Bountiful's Becky Vanderlinden, who was profiled in Friday's Deseret Morning News. Her 19-month-old daughter Lily was sickened when she received five times the dose of antibiotics that her physician had ordered. The toddler developed severe diarrhea followed by a painful yeast infection.

Perhaps the most maddening aspect of this ordeal was that Vanderlinden perceived that the 2 1/2-teaspoon dosage was too much for a toddler. She telephoned the pharmacy to double-check. She was told it was the correct dose, Vanderlinden told the Deseret Morning News. So she continued to give her daughter the antibiotics.

Although prescription errors are not rampant, the Vanderlindens are not alone in their ordeal. A 2002 Auburn University study found that "errors associated with dispensing prescriptions are committed every day in pharmacies around the country." Utah does not track prescription errors but such problems occasionally end up as calls to the Utah Poison Control Center. The center has studied 10-fold errors in patients younger than 6 years (doses 10 times more or less than physicians had ordered) and found 29 calls. However, these events could have been the fault of pharmacies, prescribers or parents dispensing the drugs at home.

Prescribers and pharmacies alike take steps to reduce prescription errors. Some doctors print prescriptions from computers, which eliminates the possibility that their handwriting cannot be read. Pharmacies have verification protocols to ensure patients receive the correct medications in the correct doses. It is up to patients to take their medicine as prescribed. As the Vanderlindens' experience instructs, they should follow their instincts when something seems amiss.