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LASA Search Tool
This semi-automated software program identifies medicine names that look alike and sound alike (LASA). It assists with the identification of medicine name pairs or groups in Australia with higher orthographic and/or phonetic similarity. Further information is available on how the tool works.
The context in which these name pairs or groups may be encountered should also be considered when attempting to introduce strategies to reduce the risk of prescribing, dispensing or administration errors.
Instructions
Enter a medicine name in the ‘Search name’ text box. The name must be a minimum of 5 letters.
Select one option from the drop-down menu box for comparisons of:
- Mixed case names
- Active ingredient/generic names (from the list of active ingredient Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) names)
- Brand names (from the AMT list of names)
- Second name (to be entered into the text box labelled ‘Name 2’).
Press enter or click on the magnifying glass to run the search.
A table will display all comparisons, or only those scores of extreme, high and/or moderate matches.
This information is not recorded, and once exported as a pdf or csv file it can be cleared by refreshing the page or running a new search.
Further information on the use of this tool can be downloaded here.
Information on how the LASA Search Tool works
The LASA software has been designed for use with Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT). Therefore, some adaptation may be required for use in other countries. It has incorporated open-source GNU General Public License software and is freely available to any interested users under the GNU General Public License.
The brand names and Active Ingredient names used in this software originate from SNOMED-CT-AU managed by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA). The ADHA is responsible for managing, developing and distributing national clinical terminologies such as the AMT.
The AMT contains Australian medicines for human use including TGA registered AUSTR, many AUSTL products and PBS/RPBS products including standard extemporaneous preparations. The AMT permanently includes discontinued products (trade product and ingredient names) that are no longer available in Australia. For example: Reductil (sibutramine). Discontinued products can still be validly recorded in electronic health records or other clinical notes.
Each name will be transformed by removing numbers and punctuation. If multiple words are entered, only the first word will be used for comparison. The following processed terms are excluded from comparisons: activated, action, after, american, antihistamine, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiseptic, bandage, chelsea, chesty, clear, clean, compound, congested, cream, dressing, ethyl, extra, first, hairscience, inert, liquid, methyl, monobasic, prepared, sleep, strong, water. If the two names to be compared differ in length by 4 or more characters, they are not compared.
The orthographic component uses the mean of the Levenshtein Edit Distance algorithm and the BISIM algorithm. The phonetic component uses the ALINE algorithm. The mean of the orthographic and phonetic components produces the final score. Each of these scores is normalised to produce scores between 0 (dissimilar) to 1 (identical).
The active ingredient and trade product names come from the latest SNOMED Australian Terminology data accessed from the CSIRO Ontoserver which is updated monthly.