What is mitte in prescription

If you think there is an error, you can tell the pharmacist or call your healthcare provider. If you do not understand what your prescription says, ask for help. Your healthcare provider or another healthcare provider in the office can answer your questions. This could help you detect and prevent an error. Ask your healthcare provider to include your condition on the prescription—for example, not just "take once a day," but "take once a day for high cholesterol.

Handwritten prescriptions are usually written on a pre-printed paper. The paper will show your healthcare provider's name, address, and phone number.

You may also see numbers such as a Drug Enforcement Administration DEA number, which allows your healthcare provider to prescribe controlled substances. These numbers may appear on the top or bottom of the paper. There will also be space for your name and address, your age, the date, and the healthcare provider's signature.

In the blank area, your healthcare provider will write the following directions:. The prescription will also indicate how much medicine the pharmacist should give you. It will also include the number of times you can refill the prescription. Your healthcare provider may use different abbreviations or symbols. If you do not understand them, ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for help.

The table below includes some commonly used prescription abbreviations. You can also find an alphabetical list of abbreviations at ResourcePharm. Medications have brand names and generic names. Your healthcare provider may use either on your prescription. For example, sertraline is the generic name for the brand Zoloft. Zoloft is a medication often prescribed to treat depression. In many states, pharmacists can give you a generic medication even if your healthcare provider writes a prescription for the brand name version.

In some cases, though, your healthcare provider may write "DAW" on your prescription. DAW stands for "dispense as written. DAW-1 means the healthcare provider is requiring the brand name drug. DAW-2 means the patient requested the brand name drug. Generic drugs are typically less expensive than brand name drugs. Because of this, some insurance plans will penalize you for a DAW prescription.

For example, you may have to pay the cost difference between the generic and the brand name drug. Some insurance plans may require you to pay the cost difference for a brand name drug. Talk with your healthcare provider if you have questions about a DAW on your prescription. This ensures you will know how and when to take the medication.

For a diagnosis of high cholesterol :. For a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes :. For a diagnosis of high blood pressure :. None the wiser, you make a mental note to ask the pharmacist about how many times a day you are to take the medication.

The authors from Harvard Medical School are concerned that the modern emphasis on patient-centred care notwithstanding, patients are too often left in the dark regarding the purpose of the drugs they have been prescribed.

They quote the following argument for opaque prescription writing from , which appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal , the forerunner of the NEJM. The answer is obvious — that if they did, the patient would often be less benefited than he now is.

There are very few minds which have sufficient firmness, during the continuance of disease, to reason calmly on the probable effects of remedies, and to compare their wonted action. The only state in which the mind can rest. Medicine has hopefully moved on from such breathtaking paternalism yet Latin persists in prescription writing.

Anecdotally, pharmacists here say that most scripts they dispense contain more English and less Latin these days, but it is rare to see a prescription entirely written in English. There is no doubt abbreviations, whether in Latin or English, are a source of healthcare error.

For example, a recommended total daily dose of 2,mg of ibuprofen an anti-inflammatory drug should be prescribed as mg every six hours rather than mg q. With the Latin directions, the patient could take all four doses before noon and still feel that he or she was in compliance with the q.

The World Health Organisation says there is no global standard for prescription writing. Meanwhile back with the prescription you were given in the first paragraph, here is a translation of the hieroglyphics. And here are a few more abbreviations commonly used: a. Research shows menopausal women often leave the workforce due to the symptoms.

Knowing what toys to buy for a crawling, gurgling baby is mind-boggling. One in 50 people suffer from the condition, which can include cognitive impairments, anxiety, muscle tenderness and sleep disturbance. New cookery competition launched for able and disabled teens. In the scenario given for cilazapril, it is recommended that the patient be seen at the practice during the trial period so their blood pressure can be re-checked. This also provides an opportunity for laboratory assessment if required, e.

When checking for adverse effects during the trial period for a patient taking cilazapril, an ACE related cough may or may not develop within one month. This can lead to unnecessarily large quantities of medicines being dispensed, if the prescriber does not specify an amount to be dispensed on the prescription.

Depending on the medicine, this can pose a safety risk to the patient and their family, as well as contributing to medicine wastage. As well as minimising wastage, this provides clinicians with an opportunity to reassess the patient in a follow up phone call or return consultation, if they require more medicine than expected. A patient requires a laxative on an intermittent but ongoing basis and is given the following standard prescription:.

The pharmacist dispensing this prescription could dispense a total of tablets to allow for up to four tablets per day for 90 days. The pharmacist should discuss the amount required by the patient and use their clinical reasoning when deciding on the frequency and quantity on each dispensing, but ideally the prescriber should first consider if this is an appropriate quantity for the patient to be supplied before they are reviewed again.

This quantity of tablets will provide the patient with enough to take one tablet twice daily, regularly, with 20 extra tablets for the occasional higher dose. The pharmacist will dispense a total of tablets if the prescription is written in this way. This is appropriate if the intention of the prescriber is for the patient to take 1 g paracetamol on a regular basis, four times daily, for three months, e.

However, it is worth considering if this quantity is appropriate for the patient you have in front of you — what is the paracetamol being prescribed for? Is the intention that the paracetamol be used occasionally, when required, and not continuously?

Is it safe for this household? This quantity provides the patient with enough supply to take two tablets, twice daily, for a few days a week over a three month period, e.

Ideally, patients with asthma will be well controlled with preventive medicines and will require reliever medicines infrequently. If a patient is requiring frequent prescriptions for reliever inhalers, this is an indication that they may not be using their preventer inhaler optimally, or at all.

The appropriate quantity of inhalers to prescribe is determined by the intended frequency of use, which will differ with the individual requirements of the patient. If their asthma is well controlled with a corticosteroid inhaler you would expect them to only need one salbutamol inhaler every three to six months. Patients may also require an extra inhaler for their car or sports bag, but will not require this extra amount every prescription.

Best Practice Tip : Different types of asthma inhalers vary in the number of doses they contain, e. Make sure the number of inhalers or capsules for inhalers indicated on a prescription will provide enough quantity to deliver the intended number of doses for the time frame indicated. The rules relating to how medicines are dispensed are set out in various sections of the Pharmaceutical Schedule. Section A: General Rules sets out the requirements for the subsidy and dispensing of community pharmaceuticals while Section F provides additional information on exemptions to monthly dispensing.

However, if the pharmacist has considered that more frequent dispensing is warranted as outlined above the patient may have received paracetamol tablets each month. This can give an indication to the pharmacist that the prescriber feels more frequent prescribing is required and provided that the patient or the medicine are eligible under the Dispensing Frequency Rule, this will enable the items to be dispensed monthly.

For many patients, stat prescribing of prescription items will save them repeated trips to the pharmacy, but for others where there may be safety issues in particular, the prescriber and pharmacist should work together to determine the appropriate prescribing frequency. When a patient presents a prescription at a pharmacy, any item on the prescription can be held at the pharmacy for up to three months, and dispensed at a later date if needed.

This is a useful strategy for minimising medicine wastage, if a medicine is prescribed at the time of a consultation, but it is uncertain whether the medicine will be needed by the patient. This might be done to avoid the patient having to return for another consultation. An alternative strategy is to write the prescription item on a separate page from the other items, and instruct the patient to only have it dispensed if they require it; a prescription is eligible for subsidy if it is presented within three months from the date it was written.

Ideally a notification or communication from the pharmacist would allow the prescriber to document whether or not a prescription has been dispensed. This may become more common place as electronic prescribing systems evolve and information is able to be more quickly and easily shared. It is useful for the pharmacist also to ask patients if they require all of the medicines on their prescription to be dispensed. If a patient repeatedly asks their pharmacy to not dispense a medicine, however, and there is a concern about their adherence with prescribed medicines, the pharmacist should discuss this with the prescriber.

Decisions around quantities of medicines prescribed often factor in financial considerations for the patient, i. However, the quantities of medicines that will be stored in homes, and may not be used, should also be kept in mind. This strategy is aimed at limiting the supply quantities of medicines that pose a particular clinical risk to patients who, for example, have difficulty managing their medicines, patients who may be at risk of intentional overdose, or who may be inclined to use the medicines inappropriately or in an unsafe way.

Prescribe the medicine in the usual way and specify a maximum quantity of the medicine to be supplied to the patient on each dispensing e.