As healthcare professionals who work in the front lines in patient care in the Emergency Rooms and Family Doctor’s office, it became more apparent to us that drug errors were occurring because people did not understand which of their pills worked for which condition. People would ask us to label the medication for them.

Investigating the literature, Canadians spend 24 billion dollars a year on medication. Admissions to hospital for medication errors and adverse reactions costs well over 30 million dollars. As many as 10,000 deaths a year are attributed to problems with medication use.

A strong effort has been made by health professionals such as pharmacists to enclose literature and provide written material. This is not enough.

We have designed labels for medical bottles to indicate the medical condition the drug is used for. We have included labels with text and pictorials. Pictorials have been shown to improve understanding and retention of information and reduce cultural, literacy and language barriers. 

Medication regimes are becoming more complicated and because the focus is prevention, the regimes become a lifelong necessity. Patients and caregivers require simple tools to assist in reducing errors.

We believe this basic tool will improve patient care, assist caregivers, reduce medication error and visits to hospitals and doctors’ offices.

We hope to improve health literacy and continue to engage patients to be the lever to their healthcare.

We intend to work with other healthcare professionals to make labeling a necessary service and develop a website for information and access to label purchases.

The labels are inexpensive, easily identified and can be placed at the top or bottom of the bottles. Asking our doctor, nurse or pharmacist to assist patients is quickly done.

Let’s make it simpler and safer for all of us.

Our money will be used to patent, market, prototype and distribute the labels across Canada. We hope to provide them at little to no cost to patients in need.

Endorsements:

This is a great project and I would endorse it 100%. As a clinical pharmacist with over 40 years of experience working with patients and providers I have seen first hand the consequences of medication misadventures. Medication mistakes contribute significantly to hospitalizations and unnecessary morbidity and mortality particularly among the elderly. Existing auxiliary labels for medications do not provide the clear and concise information that is necessary to facilitate use. I hope to see these labels in widespread use in the near future.

Paul Murphy
Clinical Pharmacist
Hamilton, Ont

Working in an Emergency room I unfortunately see the results of medication misuse on a daily basis. The labels that Jaime and Lauren had created would dramatically impact how both patients and caregivers identify and understand their medications. The number of medication errors and incidents of misuse that could be prevented is incredible!


Stefen Glendining BScn, RN

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