Decoding "drug imprints" at the millennium: a proposal to increase accuracy and reduce costs.

The State of Washington mandated the use of imprints on all prescription drugs in 1980 and for "OTC's" in 1991. The FDA implemented federal requirements in 1995. Unfortunately, the FDA permitted the continued use of symbols, logotypes, and trademarks as code components, limiting the use of automated recognition systems. Analyses of several week-long samples of phone inquiries documented imprinting calls, the staff's ability to respond with an identification, the information sources used, and apparent reasons for any failure. In the first week we received 666 decoding requests, which when projected for the year amounted to > 25,000 calls. A review of 1999 data exceeded that number. Staff was able to reach drug identification in 93.8% of inquiries. Uninterpretable symbols and absence of code listings contributed to the 36 failures. Projecting over the US suggested as many as 1.25 million calls costing poison centers $25 million/y. A touch-tone telephone or website response system could permit automated responses. Neither solution is feasible without the elimination of symbols or logotypes when using an exclusively alpha-numeric code.