Homework Help: Medical Terminology

Posted by Tami on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 2:35am.

I am trying to write a paper.I am to using jcaho and ismp. I have to answer the following questions:
How can eliminating abbreviations reduce errors?
Should written policies be developed for abbrevation usage? If yes what should the policies contain? If no,explain.
When are abbrevations acceptable? Who should use them and why?
According to the information in the online article,do you think enough steps have been taken to record errors? Explain why you agree and disagree.

The problem i am having is that I can't find no articles to read. Has someone out there done this,I don't want the answers just a point in the right direction.
Thank You

Medical Terminology - Dr Russ, Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 4:24am
I can give you an example where using abbreviations wasted time and money. Amines can be separated by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and one way of seeing the spots on the TLC plate is to spray the plate with iodoplatinic acid (IPA).
Years ago I worked for a pharmaceutical company and I had written up the method of preaparing an amine and it described the method in shorthand using the abbreviation IPA. A colleague in the pharmacology department had a sample of the amine but complained to me that had been unable see the spots on a TLC plate when he sprayed the plate with IPA (isopropyl alcohol). He had even tried IPA (india pale ale - a beer in the UK)!
This had wasted quite a lot of time and hence money.

One of the main sources of confusion is where abbreviations or acronyms become so familiar to folks in one field that they become an everyday language. Different sciences might be an example where often the abbreviation is a word. When two areas overlap and the abbreviation means different things to each group then problems can occur.

If you need examples try this web site. I have included STAR as an example.

http://www.acronymfinder.com/STAR.html

Hope that this is useful.

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