ISMP Safe Medicine November/December 2008, Volume 6, Number 6. ©2008 ISMP

Brand name medicines appear in green; generic medicines appear in red.

ConsumerMedSafety.org A unique website for consumers

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) is proud to announce the recent launch of a new website, ConsumerMedSafety.org (go to:  www.ConsumerMedSafety.org). This website is designed to help you, the consumer, avoid mistakes when taking medicines. Preventing medication errors is a huge responsibility that doctors, pharmacists, and nurses take seriously. But you, too, can play a vital role in preventing dangerous errors, and ConsumerMedSafety.org is exactly what you need to protect yourself and your loved ones!

The following offers a glimpse at some of the information available at ConsumerMedSafety.org.

Drug Alerts. This section contains newsworthy information about safety issues with particular medicines or related products. This includes newly identified problems with prescription or over-the-counter medicines, drug advertisements that are unclear, and important recalls of certain medicines.

Safety Articles. This is the largest section of the website. It contains hundreds of articles covering important steps you can take to help prevent errors while visiting your doctor, when picking up prescriptions at your pharmacy, when you are hospitalized, or when you are taking medicines at home. Many safety tips are preceded by a story about an error that actually happened. 

Latest News. This section includes timely health and safety information. For example, recommendations related to flu vaccines were provided before the beginning of the flu season, and warnings were recently issued regarding accidental ingestion by children of common camphor products used to freshen the air.

Customized Safety Alerts. One of the key features on ConsumerMedSafety.org is your ability to develop a personalized medication safety alert system. This free feature is called ISMP MedSafetyAlert!

 Tools and Resources. This section of ConsumerMedSafety.org offers facts you need in order to take your medicines safely.

Report Medication Errors. Every time you read information about your medicines on ConsumerMedSafety.org, you take an important step toward preventing an error. But don't stop there! Take the next step and share with us any of your concerns or experiences with medication errors. ConsumerMedSafety.org allows you to confidentially report any medication error that happened to you or a family member.

We hope that you and your family will browse our new website and take advantage of our unique ISMP MedSafetyAlert! system and free information. We welcome your comments about the website (ismpinfo@ismp.org). We are committed to improvements to ensure ConsumerMedSafety.org meets your needs.