NEWS FLASH: Americans don’t understand drug labels.
The IOM estimates that 90 million Americans can’t fully understand and act upon health information.
U.S. Pharmacopeia to the rescue.
Proposed USP standards could make label information and instructions more comprehensible. For example, instructions to “Take two tablets twice daily” can raise confusion; saying “Take 2 tablets in the morning and 2 tablets in the evening” makes the numbers more explicit and also specifies exactly when to take the medications. The recommendations also suggest that if it’s okay with the patient, labels should include the purpose of the drug, and in plain language, i.e. “for high blood pressure” rather than “for hypertension.”
It's okay.
The proposed standards recommend formatting that can make labels easier to read, including using regular sentence structure, and laying out labels so users don’t have to rotate the container to read them.
The USP is taking comments at 17PrescriptionContainterLabeling@usp.org until the end of March. When finalized, they could be adopted by state pharmacy boards or other authorities.
It’s about time that we stop talking about health literacy, compliance and adherence and start doing something about.
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
