NC Board of Pharmacy to create special committee to study compounding pharmacies
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/nc-board-pharmacy-create-special-committee-study-c/nSrqn/
From the Article:
“In many states, boards of pharmacy really struggle with their resources to go out and enforce their laws,”
“Our goal is to get to every pharmacy in the state at least every two to three years,” said state director Jay Campbell.
With this statement from the NC state director and the recent happenings in regards to NECC… It would appear that they only move when tomb stones start to mount up.
IMO.. the BOP’s believe that when the practice act states that the PIC or RPH on duty is legally responsible for the legal operation of the Rx dept… that is what happens.
while this may be generally true in the independents… as demonstrated by the Oregon BOP survey where 75% of RPH’s in the survey believed that their work environment provided for patient safety… as opposed to only 25% of chain RPH’s believed that their Rx dept did the same.
As we have moved over the last couple of decades from a independent dominated community pharmacy market place to one dominated by the chains… have we moved into a “wild wild west” environment?
Has the concept of PIC at the store level become outdated? If employees of the permit holder sets up the work environment, staffing budgets and all the rest of the things that can influence/affect medication errors or the RPH not having time to adequately counsel the patients on new Rxs. Shouldn’t the permit holder be the responsible party for the legal operation of the Rx dept… should the RPH/DM be held responsible for what goes wrong? If a PIC can be held responsible for things that go on when he/she is not on duty… who believes that a PIC of a 24 hr store should be accountable for all that goes on.
There are a lot of “finger prints” on medication errors…but under our current system.. there is only one fall guy/gal
Filed under: General Problems
Steve, there is one thing that is very different from a pharmacist that is PIC and owner of an independent pharmacy and that of a PIC of a chain pharmacy. The pharmacy owner likely designed the pharmacy. If not, he has the power to modify it. Not so with the chain PIC. The design of a pharmacy can affect a lot of things…from the noise level in the pharmacy…the number of distractions…the ability to privately counsel patients and avoid a HIPPA violation…the ability to make things more ergonomic. Besides the design, there are all the other aspects of operating a pharmacy, for which the independent controls…amount and quality of the tech help…refusal to take abuse from customers…control over the equipment(if it is worn out he can replace it). The BOP’s are living in the ‘stone age’! The world has changed but they have not. It is time for them to move into the modern world, scrap a lot of old regulations, and make new ones that fit the chain environment, stop placing all the blame on the PIC and start holding the corporations responsible.
About Eric Cropp, did anyone think about sending the head of the hospital to jail? The computer system had been down and the way things were done in that hospital pharmacy were managed by the hospital. So, why did Eric Cropp get all the blame? What about that seasoned tech that had enough sense to know to use the right concentration of sodium chloride, but for some odd reason, used the wrong one? She was not punished…nothing. After that incident at the hospital, the hospital made changes in the way they handled IV’s. Of course, at the time that Eric Cropp was being investigated, they had no problem with their current setup. It is a kind of ‘pin the tail’ on the donkey and Eric Cropp was the donkey in this case. And, that is the way it is across the US. When something goes wrong, just go blame the ‘donkey’…the pharmacist in charge.