Frequently Asked Questions

Information


What is the background to medication errors?
  • By some conservative estimates, unintended mistakes involving prescription drugs harm at least 1.5 million Americans each year.
  • These errors affect millions Americans each year. These errors result in $3.5 billion in extra medical costs and a great deal of illness and suffering.
  • For many patients, keeping track of a prescription regimen is a complicated, ongoing struggle. This is especially true when patients are juggling multiple prescriptions from several doctors.
  • Following prescriptions can be especially challenging for the elderly, the frail and for those with low literacy skills.

What is our mission statement?
  • The Medication Safety Foundation is devoted to working on solutions in the area of patient medication adherence and complex medication regimens.
  • Our foundation is a nonprofit corporation located in northern California and started in 2008 to help patients and care givers manage their medicines safely and effectively.

Why are we offering this service?
  • We are offering this service because we have seen first-hand that as patients take multiple medicines, using them properly and as prescribed becomes more difficult and confusing, especially if the patient and family are not medically sophisticated.

What are our goals?
  • Improve transitions between care settings through a patient-centered web-based medication calendar.
  • Make medication reconciliation easy and safe for those patients at risk for further problems aggravated by poor understanding and adherence to complex medication regimens.
  • Patient-centered, with permissions delegated to family members as well as helath care providers as the patient chooses.

Who is on the team of the Medication Safety Foundation?

Does the website come in any other languages?
  • Currently our website is developed only in English. However, we strive to provide this service in Spanish and Chinese, with more languages to come.
  • If you would like to help translate the website, please contact us to see how you can help.
  • For now, the service offered licenses a medication database with U.S. medications only.