Tall man lettering (tall-man lettering or tallman lettering) is the practice of writing part of a drug's name in upper case letters to help distinguish sound-alike, look-alike drugs from one another in order to avoid medication errors.[1][2] For example, in tall man lettering, "prednisone" and "prednisolone" should be written "predniSONE" and "predniSOLONE", respectively. The Office of Generic Drugs of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) encourages manufacturers to use tall man lettering labels to visually differentiate their drugs' names,[1] and a number of hospitals, clinics, and health care systems use tall man lettering in their computerized order entry, automated dispensing machines, medication admission records, prescription labels, and drug product labels.[3]
- ^ a b "Name Differentiation Project". FDA.gov. Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Archived from the original on February 21, 2008. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
- ^ "FAQ: 5. How should Tallman lettering be applied to look-alike/sound-alike drug name pairs?". ISMP.org. Institute for Safe Medication Practices. Archived from the original on December 18, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
- ^ Examples: "University of Utah Health Care Pharmacy Alert #191" dated 2006/12/04, browsed 2007/12/20; Fraser Health 'Doctors in the Know' newsletter dated September, 2006, browsed 2007/12/20; Johns Hopkins Hospital "Pharmacy and Therapeutics Newsletter" dated July 2005, archived 2007/3/15.