Using name overlap analysis to understand medication name search safety.
There are many strategies to improve medication safety, such as tall man lettering, but serious errors still occur. This study describes a new method of ensuring the appropriate medication is selected by requiring users to type just enough characters of the medication name to uniquely identify a single name. Results show as few as 4 characters may be needed to identify a single name, but substantial research is still required, including in real-world settings.