Measuring the Effects of Drug Label Design and Similarity on Pharmacists' Performance

by Aga Bojko, Associate Director

Abstract

In an effort to make drug packaging production more cost effective, Abbott created a standard template for its prescription drug labels. Initial studies showed that the new label, when applied to drug bottles, improved performance both in terms of search efficiency and information processing efficiency. So, what exactly caused the improvement? Applying a template to all Abbott drug labels meant two things: change in label design and increase in consistency across labels Was the observed improvement due to the new design or the inter-label similarity?