gms | German Medical Science

Background: “But they look different” – this is probably the most common sentence you can hear in public pharmacies. The reason therefor is the replacement of the drug manufacturer in the case of identical active ingredients, which is often necessary. The frequently needed discussions with patients can proved to be very intensive and time consuming. For us this resulted into the aim to develop a tool that support the advice of information and thereby reduce the extent of explanation.

Materials and Methods: Over a period of five years the most different problematic cases connected to the dispensing of medications were recorded. Various solution approaches were devised and elicited during this time. As the result of this developmental work we present the “Medikamenten Pass” in combination with package labels.

Results: The most mentioned problem is by far the application of discount agreements (WSG). But also the neglection of the “aut-idem”-rule, the short-term bridging of supply shortages, switching to a copayment-exemt medication, the change of the package design, the continuation of stationary treatment through the family physician as well as the prescription through a different doctor (consultant, locum doctor etc.) disturbed the selection to the appropriate medication.

It also became apparent that a lot of customers are visually oriented. Insecured ones (for example with poor knowledge of the German language) take package snippets with them into the pharmacy to make sure that they get the right medication. To fit these and other requirements, the “Medikamenten Pass” proved to be the best approach.

The presented “Medikamenten Pass” is a 18-sided DIN A6 booklet, which contains contact details and a list of all medications and medical devices in colored images (see Attachment 1 [Attach. 1]). These images are scanned before the dispensing of medication or are taken from the own database. These colored stickers get printed and pasted into the “Medikamenten Pass”. Through this technique we get the enhanced flexibility to modify or supplement the “Medikamenten Pass” at any time.

The main idea of the “Medikamenten Pass” is the visual identification of medical drugs. It can be extended and combined, depending on the needs and the willingness of patients:

+ Addition of information about dosage and administration taken from the medication plan provided by the physicians

+ Standardized medication check for the detection of medication errors

+ Brown-Bag-Event to expose under- and oversupply, double prescriptions or range problems

+ Individually adapted package labels in Turkish language to break through language barriers (see Attachment 2 [Attach. 2])

Conclusion: After the technical implementation of the “Medikamenten Pass” and proving its usability, it was introduced into our pharmacies. Currently it passes further practical trials. The practical utility of this “Medikamenten Pass” and its possible effects on the pharmaceutical drug safety has to be determined in further investigations.