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Look Alike Sound Alike Project List to be filled by the drug distributors
On behalf of the Quality assurance of Pharmaceutical Products Program at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), we are contacting you with an official request to provide information regarding your products in the context of a project on “Look-Alike Sound-Alike Medications”.
Literature shows that Look-Alike Sound-Alike (LASA) pairs are viewed as the cause of medication errors. LASA health products refer to names of different medicinal products that have orthographic similarities (look-alike in the way they are written), and/or phonetics similarities (sound-alike in the way they are pronounced), which is the main focus and scope of the required requested list. These similarities may pose serious health risk by causing errors in prescribing, dispensing or administering a product. LASA errors can result in overdosing, under-dosing, or inappropriate dosing.
Keeping in mind that potential for error is further increased by similar packaging, tablet appearance, tablet strength, or route of administration; which are not within this project scope.
The project aims to identify LASA pairs among the medications authorized for use in the Lebanese market that may be similarly written and/or have similar sounding brand names. Accordingly, a comprehensive list of LASA commonly confused medication names will be published.
You are therefore kindly requested to fill the provided excel sheet “LASA List to be filled with your products”, in which you shall identify any drug in your portfolio that matches another drug available for use in Lebanon that is written or pronounced like it.
To this end, you are kindly invited to apply the following instructions:
The excel sheet (link below): it is a list of the products authorized for use in Lebanon with their relevant information. It is extracted from the latest Drugs Public Price List from the MoPH’s official website. (extracted on 7th March, 2023) (add link of excel sheet here)
For each of your products:
In the “Agent” column (Column C), apply the filter to choose your company name; this will display only your products in the “Brand name” column (Column D).
In the “MoH Drug Name” columns (column J), indicate for each of your products the identified list of drugs that may be written similarly to yours.
In the “MoH Drug Name” columns (column K) indicate for each of your products the identified list of drugs that may be pronounced similarly to yours.
For steps 3 and 4, please write NA If not applicable
Fill the “Comment” column (Column L) with any information present that you may find relevant.
Please refer to rows number 4, 5, and 6 as examples. These were extracted from the Institute for Safe Medications Practices List.
Send us the filled excel sheet at the following email addresses: lasa.moph@gmail.com or lasa@moph.gov.lb
Ensure that your file is named as follow: (name of the distributor-lasalist2023),Example: Mersaco-lasalist2023
You are kindly expected to reply back within 2 months after receiving this email (by May 31st, 2023), the latest.
Thank you for your time and cooperation.
On behalf of the Quality assurance of Pharmaceutical Products Program at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), we are contacting you with an official request to provide information regarding your products in the context of a project on “Look-Alike Sound-Alike Medications”.
Literature shows that Look-Alike Sound-Alike (LASA) pairs are viewed as the cause of medication errors. LASA health products refer to names of different medicinal products that have orthographic similarities (look-alike in the way they are written), and/or phonetics similarities (sound-alike in the way they are pronounced), which is the main focus and scope of the required requested list. These similarities may pose serious health risk by causing errors in prescribing, dispensing or administering a product. LASA errors can result in overdosing, under-dosing, or inappropriate dosing.
Keeping in mind that potential for error is further increased by similar packaging, tablet appearance, tablet strength, or route of administration; which are not within this project scope.
The project aims to identify LASA pairs among the medications authorized for use in the Lebanese market that may be similarly written and/or have similar sounding brand names. Accordingly, a comprehensive list of LASA commonly confused medication names will be published.
You are therefore kindly requested to fill the provided excel sheet “LASA List to be filled with your products”, in which you shall identify any drug in your portfolio that matches another drug available for use in Lebanon that is written or pronounced like it.
To this end, you are kindly invited to apply the following instructions:
The excel sheet (link below): it is a list of the products authorized for use in Lebanon with their relevant information. It is extracted from the latest Drugs Public Price List from the MoPH’s official website. (extracted on 7th March, 2023) (add link of excel sheet here)
For each of your products:
In the “Agent” column (Column C), apply the filter to choose your company name; this will display only your products in the “Brand name” column (Column D).
In the “MoH Drug Name” columns (column J), indicate for each of your products the identified list of drugs that may be written similarly to yours.
In the “MoH Drug Name” columns (column K) indicate for each of your products the identified list of drugs that may be pronounced similarly to yours.
For steps 3 and 4, please write NA If not applicable
Fill the “Comment” column (Column L) with any information present that you may find relevant.
Please refer to rows number 4, 5, and 6 as examples. These were extracted from the Institute for Safe Medications Practices List.
Send us the filled excel sheet at the following email addresses: lasa.moph@gmail.com or lasa@moph.gov.lb
Ensure that your file is named as follow: (name of the distributor-lasalist2023),Example: Mersaco-lasalist2023
You are kindly expected to reply back within 2 months after receiving this email (by May 31st, 2023), the latest.
Thank you for your time and cooperation.
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