New standards released by the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) for the first time provide a universal approach to the format, appearance, content, and language of instructions for prescriptions dispensed by pharmacists. The USP standards provide specific direction on how to organize labels in a patient-centered manner that best reflects how most patients understand medication instructions.

The standards emphasize instructions and other information important to patients, improve readability by specifying fonts to use and font size, separate the dose itself from the timing of each dose, include the purpose for use, address limited English proficiency, and provide alternative access for visually impaired patients.

Examples of the prescription container labels that comply with the new USP standards can be seen at http://uspgo.to/prescription-container-labeling.