PHARMACIST STEVE

Here is a quote from the Indiana practice act

“Qualifying pharmacist” means the pharmacist who will qualify the pharmacy by being responsible to the board for the legal operations of the pharmacy under the permit. — this is the PIC definition — compare it to your practice act…

Here is the definition of a what a pharmacy is:

“Pharmacy” means any facility, department, or other place where prescriptions are filled or compounded and are sold, dispensed, offered, or displayed for sale and which has as its principal purpose the dispensing of drug and health supplies intended for the general health, welfare, and safety of the public, without placing any other activity on a more important level than the practice of pharmacy.

For those Pharmacists who are the PIC… In Indiana’s practice act it plainly states… YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE TO THE BOARD FOR THE LEGAL OPERATIONS

Look at the definition of a PHARMACY… for those of you working for the BIG BOYS… there is a lock on the pharmacy door and a separate alarm because only those few hundred square feet are the LICENSED PHARMACY AREA…

It doesn’t matter what their title.. if they are in past the locked door… they are there only with your permission and remain there only with your permission… It doesn’t matter if you are PIC or the only RPH on duty… you are in charge of the licensed area…

NO COMPANY POLICY can supercede a Fed/State law.. PERIOD!

Even if a “corporate shirt” comes into the licensed area… if they are a licensed Pharmacist but not licensed in your state… they can’t tell you .. that you have to do something – as a Pharmacist – that you are not comfortable doing… If they want it done… let them put their initials on it. If anyone believes that they have the right to tell you do something – as a Pharmacist – then they should have the legal authority to put their initials on it in the system.

THEIR OPINION doesn’t count as to what they believe they have authority over… just the law counts…

The Pharmacy Alliance (TPA) was recently made aware of a large area of TN where an extended computer outage (9 hr +/-) at a major chain drug store.

here is a quote by a tech on another Pharmacist’s blog:

December 9th was a huge headache and mess. Down from 11 AM til about 7:30 PM EST. I can attest to management calling and demanding comparable work. Our pharmacists were informed that there would be consequences if patients were not served at our stores and sent to others. Also they were told there would be consequences as well if they didn’t continue to fill because our numbers were very bad during the last outage

Other Pharmacists have reported similar demands of “continuing to fill” and threats of “consequences” … the demand is against state law and breaking a state law is against’s most companies policies and procedures.

One Pharmacist reported that when the person on the phone call relaying the demands to “keep filling” to provide their name/phone number and their immediate supervisor’s name/phone number… the request was denied.

It would appear that those involved making these calls … knew that they were so far “off the reservation” and they didn’t want their name anywhere around when it “hit the fan” Some have stated that this is the 4th or 5th major extended computer outage for this company during 2011.

One must ask the question… what other parts of their pharmacy computer system doesn’t live up to the rest of pharmacy industry computer standards?

Here is a quote from this chain’s spokesperson regarding a med error in California…. spokesperson stated that we use industry-leading standards

here is the entire story http://healthblog.steveariens.com/?p=252

If this is our “industry-leading standards”… might help explain why there are 1.5 MILLION patients harmed by med errors every year..
Is it time to change our standards?… Perhaps we need to change those that develop/implement these standards?

Filed under: General dumb-ass problems, Mistakes/Errors