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United States Pharmacopeia, a private, nonprofit standards-setting organization for safe medications, has created a free database to help nurses, other clinicians, pharmacists, patients, and caregivers avoid medication errors because of drugs looking or sounding like others.

The Drug Error Finder, announced Aug. 25, covers 1,470 unique drugs in which medication errors have been reported to U.S. Pharmacopeia's MEDMARX — a database for anonymous reporting of medication errors — or to the organization's Medication Errors Reporting Program.

The online database is at www.usp.org/hqi/similarProducts/drug ErrorFinderTool.html. Typing in a drug name will show medications that have been confused with the drug and the severity of reported errors, from potential for error to death.

For instance, from more than 26,000 reported errors from 2003 to 2006, the finder lists mix-ups between Xanax and Tenex, Vioxx, Zanaflex, and Zantac, all with no harm.

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