Each year, 1.3 million people in the USA are harmed due to medication errors. A large share of that error involves dispensing of wrong medicines due to illegible hand-written prescriptions. Although, there is no proper collection of data in India, but records from various accredited hospitals estimate that 1.5 lakh people suffered from life-threatening complications, in 2015 in Hyderabad, as pharmacists gave wrong medicines as they could not understand the doctors' handwriting. In view of this, Telangana government has taken a landmark decision to reduce prescription error.
There was a general advice from Indian Medical Association to doctors to write the prescription in capital letter to reduce the confusion of pharmacist in dispensing drugs. However, it was never judiciously followed. From July, doctors’ prescriptions will have to be written in capital letters at hospitals certified…
