What can be done to reduce abbreviation errors in the medical field?

Answer 1

Write the entire word/name/phrase. Don't make up your own abbreviations.

AnswerIn many instances, its impractical to write the entire word/name/phrase, as many can be quite long. While education and experience in a particular discipline are the best ways to reduce errors, there are still hundreds of abbreviations in medicine. Often times, many words and phrases use the same abbreviation, so the context is often necessary to determine an abbreviation's meaning.

One excellent tool for medical professionals is MedLexicon, a medical-abbreviations dictionary that allows a search, either by abbreviation or by phrase, and which can be found at

http://www.medilexicon.com/medicalabbreviations.php