The drawers in her bathroom are a mess. You are trying to find a way to tactfully address the issue, but you know that it is a topic that you cannot avoid. Your sister has asked you to stay with her for a week while she recovers from an ankle surgery. She is able to maneuver the stairs in her two story home, but she realizes that it would be safer to have someone staying with her for a few days. The fact that your sister takes thyroid, blood pressure, asthma, and cholesterol medicine means that the bathroom drawers are obviously cluttered with several bottles. The disorganization, however, caught you off guard. Fortunately, the pills are all in their original bottles and with the detailed clinical labelling it is easy to understand the dosage.
After a few days of seeing the chaotic state of these medications, one morning at breakfast you broached the delicate topic. You simply started by showing your sister a pill organizer that you had recently purchased for her. Taking the angle that you could help your sister avoid a couple of extra trips up and down the stairs in the future, you showed your sister a couple of pictures of how you had rearranged the pill bottles upstairs while she had breakfast downstairs at the kitchen table. You explained that while you had filled the pill organizer for her this time, you explained that after you leave your sister can do the same at the beginning of each week. The plastic pill minder can be downstairs, but the bottles and the remaining medicine can stay upstairs.
You have even taken the time to carefully read the clinical labelling and showed your sister how taking her thyroid medicine when she first comes downstairs will help the medicine work better because the clinical labelling indicates that this pill should be taken at least 30 minutes before eating. Your sister is in the habit of watering her indoor plants first thing in the morning anyway, so instead of waiting to take her medicine when she returns upstairs for a shower later in the morning or the day, the thyroid medicine can be taken first without food. The rest can be taken a little later.
Thankfully, your sister was receptive to your plan, and your new organization.
Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging Helps Patients Keep Careful Track of Their Daily Pills
Today’s announcement of the Republican Party’s plan for their new healthcare plan has everyone in the country thinking about their medications, their insurance coverage, and their doctors. And while it looks like the folks in Washington, D.C. will be debating the topic for many more days, consumers and pharmaceutical packaging companies will have to wait and see what the final decision will mean for them. On a day to day basis, however, the drug companies will continue to implement their latest pharmaceutical serialization solutions and patients will simply try to make sure that they take their pills on time.
Consider some of this information about the pharmaceutical industry and the attention it pays to packaging and accurate clinical labelling:

• 48.5% of Americans indicate that they have used at least one prescription drug in the last 30 days.
• 75.1% of medical visits involve at least one kind of drug therapy.
• 2.6 billion prescription drugs were ordered or provided by doctors and pharmacies during or after visits with physicians in the year 2010.
• Doctors ordered or provided 285.1 million prescription drugs during all outpatient hospital visits in the year 2010.
• Pouch packaging is typically used for pharmaceuticals because this format offers the option of prepackaged containers with measured doses.
• Because of its peelable lamination for easy opening, blister packaging is often used for pharmaceuticals.
• Child safe, snap off, and twist off are the typical bottle packaging options for pharmaceuticals.
• In addition to providing safety precautions, customized blister packaging also uses color, style, and container options for identification purposes.
• Card blister packaging also provides clients the ability to add coupons with their products, in an effort to generate purchases in the future.
• Blister packaging can often be produced with child safe features so only adults, not children, can access the product.
• $231.46 billion was the total U.S. pharmacy and drug store sales amount in the year 2011.