Making mistakes as a Pharmacist.

[jjoeirv]

I have done volunteer work in a Pharmacy before, and it was fast-paced. I have heard that Pharmacists sometimes make mistakes filling the prescriptions due to the huge workload, excess hours, and fast pace. What methods has your pharmacy implemented in order to reduce the number of mistakes? If, as a Pharmacist, you make a serious mistake and get sued, will your insurance protect you and your assets? With the huge number of prescriptions that must be filled each day, mistakes are inevitable.

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[LSUMED2006]

Assuming that the RX is correctly read and entered into the computer, then mistakes, if proper care is taken when reading NDC numbers, could, in THEORY (theory being the key word), be almost completely avoided. Unfortunately, mistakes do happen due to human error. Various machines, such as the scriptpro actually COMPLETLEY fill and lable the bottle. Of course, not reading/entering the script into the computer is almost a guaranteed mistake leaving the pharmacy.

Pharmacies do provide insurance coverage for their pharmacists, though many pharmacists purchase their own malpractice insurance in addition to the coverage the pharmacies provide. Keep in mind that pharmacists are responsible not only for their mistakes but also those of techs and students PLUS physician errors. It sucks, but pharmacists have (successfully) been sued for correctly filling a script containing an error due to the MD/DO/DDS/NP/PA making a mistake. This is one of the many reasons that pharmacy school is so rigorous. While many people, including myself, have often stated that pharmacy school is "overkill" for retail pharmacists, the fact still remains that pharmacists must have extensive training to catch physician medication errors.

Jason

 

[Triangulation]

On behalf of the profession, I'm insulted: pharmacists don't make mistakes. 😉

Indeed, even with basically three moments of oversight (the filler after the scripts been entered, the pharmacist before computer verification, and the actual computer scan for verification) things do get through the cracks. I just had a pt return with a EC aspirin instead of the tyco's they were supposed to get (oops🙄) It's still very much up to the verifying pharmacist to be on their toes.

Have I ever seen anything radically tweaked: giving the wrong med to a person w/a drug allergy, not yet. Will I? As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, but that can't scare you off from the profession. A waiter could kill someone by forgetting that there's peanut extract in one of the sauces when the diner asks if there's nuts in the dish. I know a surgeon who got yelled for basically saving a pt's life: When he noticed that the the chief surgeon was about to remove the wrong kidney, he piped up "Oh, I didn't know we were resecting the left kidney as well." The chief through a tirade and booted jr surgeon out of the OR. To this day, he hesitates when he says he did the right thing, bc he got blasted so bad by his boss who almost killed someone. Every profession has risks. Pharmacy is by definition a risky one, but that should motivate you more than it freaks you out. I'd rather I was doing it than some knuckle-head i don't trust.

 

[LVPharm]

That "risk" is a good thing, it's almost "by design". If pharmacists did not share the risk in the drug therapy of patients, they simply wouldn't care as much. In such a world, pharmacists would be making mistakes in spades! (They'd still care, by the way...but when your b*lls are on the line, it's a little different 😉 )

But mistakes do happen, especially when things "get busy". Fortunately, at least at the place I interned at, the pharmacist caught mistakes during verification, and the correct meds left the pharmacy. I've caught incorrectly read scripts...but its only happened 2 or 3 times with an inexperienced tech.

 

[Samoa]

One of my community pharmacy preceptors once told me there are 2 kinds of pharmacists: those who've made a huge mistake, and those who are going to make one someday.

What determines whether you get sued or not is how you handle it when it happens.

 

[lord999]

There are two situations where mistakes tend to happen.
It's actually a myth that mistakes happen frequently in busy pharmacies. Most of the time, it happens in a busy pharmacy when they have a slow day, because they are just going through the motions.