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Dangerous abbreviations are abbreviations (shortened words, symbols and dose designations) that have been identified by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada as easily misinterpreted or involved in medication incidents leading to harm and should be avoided in medication-related documentation. Up to 4.7% of all medication errors are attributed to the use of medical abbreviations [2004-2006 data] (Tariq & Sharma, 2022).
All clinicians need to be familiar with these abbreviations to ensure that they are not used in any form of written or electronic documentation including medication orders, general documentation (clinic notes, letters, etc.) for medication related communications, pre-printed forms, and pharmacy generated labels and forms. Due to the potential for harm with use of these abbreviations, the “Do Not Use” list of abbreviations is a Required Organizational Practice of Accreditation Canada.
Although many medical orders are written by physicians and residents, other healthcare providers have equal responsibility not to write or use these abbreviations. This includes order entry into computer systems. For example, a nurse writing a telephone physician order, or a nurse or unit clerk transcribing or processing orders. Click here for the ‘Quick Tip’.
Example scenarios:
The "u", for insulin "units" was misinterpreted
as "60" and the patient inappropriately received
60 units of regular (short-acting) insulin instead
of 6 units as intended. (ISMP Canada, 2022). Proper format: Write the word “units”
The “QD” (every day) was misinterpreted at “QID”
(four times a day). This error was caught prior to
reaching the patient. (ISMP US, 2022)
Proper format: Write the word “daily”
To help reduce the number of errors due to incorrect use of abbreviations, PRH uses the following strategies:
For more information on the use of Dangerous Abbreviations visit, ‘Do Not Use’ List, ISMP Canada, List of Error-Prone Abbreviations, the “Abbreviations- NOT Acceptable” and “Abbreviations- Acceptable” policy documents and supporting research.