Reminder: pay attention to the appearance of your medicines.
ISMP Canada. SafeMedicationUse Newsletter. December 2, 2014;5:1-2.
This newsletter article describes an incident involving a patient who noticed that the tablets in her prescription refill had a different marking than usual, alerting her that she might have received an incorrect medication which was confirmed by the pharmacist. Tips for patients to avoid medication errors include being familiar with how their medicines look and checking prescriptions before leaving the pharmacy. Practitioners can help prevent these errors by counting and labeling prescriptions one at a time and performing patient consultations.