Prescription Drug Danger: 4 Ways to Ensure Safe Use of Pharmaceuticals

Medication is a necessary and vital part of many people’s lives. However, unsafe practices with pharmaceuticals can create more harm than good. Here are 4 ways to use them safely and ensure they provide the intended benefits. 

1. Examine Patients Thoroughly
When a patient reports (s)he is experiencing pain, it is easy to simply prescribe a narcotic and have the patient report back to the office in a month. But perhaps alternative treatments (massage therapy, chiropractic adjustment, etc.) could benefit the patient and prevent pharmaceutical abuse. Patients need to be examined thoroughly and frequently to determine how much and how often medication should be prescribed. 

2. Establish Accountability 
When pharmaceuticals are available for access by one employee without requiring additional personnel to verify the use of the medication, problems arise. The cases of nurses or other hospital workers stealing pharmaceuticals are countless. To ensure the safe use of these medications, hospitals should require that two employees be present to obtain pharmaceuticals, not just one. 

3. Track All Prescriptions 
It is important to note the relevance of the DQSA/DSCSA. This effort to report and track prescriptions on a national level is essential to ensuring safe pharmaceutical practices. Tracking who gets what prescription will cripple the “doctor-hopping” practices of prescription abusers. This practice alone would produce measurable benefits in putting an end to the abuse of prescription medication.

4. Encourage Treatment for Pharmaceutical Abusers
When an addict suffering from methamphetamine addiction enters a rehabilitation center, the person is treated thoroughly because of the stigma associated with illicit drug use. However, another addict who abuses the medications his or her doctor prescribed is seen as simply needing to “get through it.” Abusing prescription medication is more socially acceptable than is abusing illegal drugs. So treatment is often encouraged less for the victim of pharmaceutical abuse than for someone dealing with a cocaine or heroin addiction. Nonetheless, the problem is still a problem. And unless it is recognized as such, the epidemic will continue to spread. It is vital that those struggling with prescription medication addiction be encouraged to get the help they deserve. 

These four ways to ensure safe use of pharmaceuticals will prove beneficial to the individuals directly affected by ill practices and to society as a whole. Overcoming this wide-scale problem by implementing these four suggestions will result in health and healing.