USE OF COLOR TO IDENTIFY DRUG PRODUCTS

To support the reading of drug product labels as the most important means of identifying drug products; further,

To oppose reliance on color by health professionals and others to identify drug products; further,

To oppose actions by manufacturers of drug products and others to promulgate reliance on color to identify drug products.

Rationale

Using color to transmit information about a drug product (e.g., the drug’s identity, strength, route of administration, therapeutic class, or other characteristic) is a potentially unsafe practice. ASHP discourages dependence on such color coding and encourages the reading of drug product labels. Although color may be useful to differentiate drug products, there is an important distinction between use of color for differentiation and reliance on or promulgation of color as an information-carrying code. The safety of using color as a code is scientifically untested, and approximately 7% of males cannot distinguish certain colors. In addition, an industry-wide standardization of colors or their use is unlikely to occur. Therefore, pharmacists, drug product manufacturers, and others should refrain from encouraging reliance on color as a means of identifying drug products or communicating other information about drug products, and patients should be educated not to rely on color to identify drug products. Further, ASHP encourages manufacturers, drug packagers and repackagers, outsourcing pharmacies, and others to thoughtfully select color and other labeling and packaging characteristics to avoid look-alike and other types of medication errors (ASHP policy 2044).