Purchasing & Receiving Your Medicine: At the Pharmacy

60 seconds Safety Tip: Pharmacists can help you use medicines safely

Preventing harm from drug interactions: consumers can play an important Role

Our colleagues at SafeMedicationUse.ca received a report from a consumer who was given two medicines that are known to interact with each other. This type of problem is known as a drug interaction. A drug interaction occurs when the actions of one medicine affect the actions of another medicine.

Ask Questions if Your Medicine is a Powder

A child's father went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for liquid amoxicillin, an antibiotic used to fight infections. The liquid form of this medicine starts as a powder that needs to be mixed with a specific amount of water by the pharmacist before use. By mistake, the pharmacist gave the child's father the bottle of medicine with just the powder.

Spotting a medication error

Consumers can often spot a medication error by knowing what to expect. This includes knowing what medicine has been prescribed (for example, the name and dose), what the medicine looks like, and what side effects to expect. The following reported error and great catch shows the importance of knowing about the medicine you take.

Is ordering medicines online safe for you and your family

Is ordering medicines online safe for you and your family? Today, you can order just about anything online and have it delivered to your doorstep. The Internet makes it easy to shop around for the lowest priced item. So, searching for low cost medicines online is no exception. However, there are some dangers with purchasing medicines online. For example, Internet pharmacy sites that say “no prescription needed,” should not be used. Also, some medicines sold online:

Getting the wrong person’s medicine at the pharmacy: Easy steps consumers can take to help eliminate these errors

Giving a correctly filled prescription to the wrong customer is a common error in community pharmacies. If this has never happened to you, maybe you're surprised by this fact. But you are more likely to be among the millions of people who have gone home from the pharmacy only to find they have someone else's medicine inside the pharmacy bag.

FDA campaign aims to protect consumers from the risks of fake online pharmacies

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently launched a national campaign to raise public awareness about the prevalence of fraudulent Internet pharmacies, which can be dangerous to patient health, and to help consumers make safe purchases.

When Your Medicine Doesn't Look Right

A mother picked up a refill for her child for Strattera (atomoxetine), a drug used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The capsules were a different color than with previous refills. Even though the prescription bottle said Strattera 60 mg, the mother called the pharmacy to check.