Whose fault is it?

[Hands_in_the_Ayr]

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Currently a P3 and our teacher told us that our state board has a newsletter that shows all the reprimands given to pharmacists quarterly. Me being nosy, I decided to look into what some of them got in trouble for--what I found was a little worrisome...

For example, one pharmacist was reprimanded for dispensing fluoxetine (that was phoned in) instead of augmentin. The doctor's office meant to call in fluoxetine for another patient, so this patient was wrongly on fluoxetine and had side effects. The pharmacist correctly dispensed what the office called in, but ended up getting in trouble and fined, including a permanent record showing what happened.

How could that have been prevented? In my state, counseling isn't a requirement--patients have the option to opt out, so they may have opted out, preventing the possibility of catching the mistake in the end. How are we to know? This makes it seem more like the offices fault for calling in the wrong thing, but instead the pharmacist gets reprimanded. That's totally backwards in my opinion and makes me worried that I will make a similar mistake.

Any thoughts on this? Is this just the risk pharmacists must take?

 

[zelman]

Currently a P3 and our teacher told us that our state board has a newsletter that shows all the reprimands given to pharmacists quarterly. Me being nosy, I decided to look into what some of them got in trouble for--what I found was a little worrisome...

For example, one pharmacist was reprimanded for dispensing fluoxetine (that was phoned in) instead of augmentin. The doctor's office meant to call in fluoxetine for another patient, so this patient was wrongly on fluoxetine and had side effects. The pharmacist correctly dispensed what the office called in, but ended up getting in trouble and fined, including a permanent record showing what happened.

How could that have been prevented? In my state, counseling isn't a requirement--patients have the option to opt out, so they may have opted out, preventing the possibility of catching the mistake in the end. How are we to know? This makes it seem more like the offices fault for calling in the wrong thing, but instead the pharmacist gets reprimanded. That's totally backwards in my opinion and makes me worried that I will make a similar mistake.

Any thoughts on this? Is this just the risk pharmacists must take?

They may not have correctly documented the patient declining counseling, or they may not have included the medication guide. Either would probably leave them at fault.

 

[ancienbon]

That can happen to any rph especially in retail where we verify over 500 scripts a day. It is just a matter of time.