Family Matters: Pharmacy mix-ups
http://www.okcfox.com/story/26155332/family-matters-pharmacy-mix-ups
From the article:
It’s a mistake that happens more frequently that you might think. Just last week, medication for my family was mistakenly filled at a metro pharmacy with an entirely different drug. We were mistakenly given a generic drug for high cholesterol.
“That shouldn’t happen, but it does,” said Cindy Hamilton, compliance officer for the Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy. “Every pharmacist is human. And mistakes do happen,” she said.
Hamilton’s office gets around 200 complaints from pharmacy customers a year. About a quarter of those are for mis-fills. The mistake can be deadly.
“We probably get one complaint of a fatality per year,” Hamilton said.
There is no way to know just how often these mistakes happen, because the pharmacies themselves aren’t required report errors. But if the state board gets enough complaints about a pharmacy, the pharmacist in charge could lose their license.
“Ultimately the pharmacist is responsible for everything that happens in a pharmacy,” said Hamilton. “So the pharmacist is the one we’d be taking action on.”
Who believes that there is only ONE MED MISTAKE A WEEK in the entire STATE OF OKLAHOMA ? With a population of nearly FOUR MILLION ?
Pay attention to all of those who work for a corporation… here is a quote from the compliance officer of the OK BOP “Ultimately the pharmacist is responsible for everything that happens in a pharmacy,”
Your employer – who determines how the Rx dept functions – HAS NO LIABILITY… since they don’t have a license to practice pharmacy.. they only have a license to operate a Rx dept… as long as they have a RPH that agrees to be PIC and be TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS LEGAL OPERATION..
In our case, the pharmacy immediately gave us the correct meds, launched their own investigation, and provided training to the entire staff at that location
how can you “re-train” UNDER STAFFING and how can you “re-train” the demanding customer.. when .. the corporation condones and reenforces “bad behavior” by customers with gift cards when they have behaved badly and complains ?
Did you also notice that this reporter did not mention the name of the pharmacy involved in this error ? I wonder if there was a non-disclosure and $$$ exchanged hands ?
Filed under: General Problems
When you do a incident report at that chain, just where does it go other than the pharmacy supervisor ??? Many RPHs have started printing or taking pictures.
At least one retail store I worked at, med errors were ALWAYS covered up. Patients were asked to bring back bottles apologized to and given gift cards. Med errors were only reported if there was a ‘personality’ issue among the pharmacists..it was like their way of getting rid of someone they didnt like…so high school. I kid you not. And the chain had 3 letters.
I know of one store that reported 9 errors in three weeks…and this was by one RPh, that is the reporting. Most of these were discovered on the first fill. All but on error was the same RPh. Staffing and level of training at this store is horrendous!!
Not hard to figure out what area or chain this is…when will it stop!!!!