21 Mar
Medical abbreviations ‘pose risk’
I saw this page on the BBC Health page. It suggests that the use of abbreviations should be potentially phased out as it has contributed to 5% of errors in an American study, some of which were fatal. An example quoted in the article concerns the dose of insulin given to a patient. The notes had 6IU, which was interpretated as 61 units and not the actual 6 International Units. It does make for some interesting reading.