What is a Dispensing Mistake Worth?
Do you think we are given an “allowance” for how many mistakes, or how serious a mistake, we can make before we need to be deregistered? A Detroit website has posted an article regarding a family suing Rite Aid over a dispensing error (http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22035731/detail.html). The family are also chasing up the oncologist for writing an incorrect script.
The article is an interesting read, a very sad read, but one that makes you think about what is an appropriate punishment for these and other dispensing errors. At what point does a license get taken away and you are deemed not competent to work? Even if it’s the first mistake in your career, if it’s a significant one that a reasonable person, or a peer, would think that one of the safeguards or processes in your dispensing should have alerted you to it – should you be deregistered?
Following on from the article is the comments sections which branches out this topic of discussion. The question is put back and forth between what action should be taken, and there seems to be an opinion that if you want your medication dispensed properly, you should go to a private/independent pharmacy. It then goes on to comment on the quality of the pharmacists these big companies employ. Is it fair to blame the type of pharmacists that are employed by these large companies, or is it the climate they work under, such as large script volume, that might be a contributor to being overworked and more susceptible to error? Is it the hours that the pharmacist might be pressured to work, or is it unfair to blame the company, and if the pharmacist feels they cannot work properly under such conditions, the onus is on them to say no? That may be oversimplifying things.
If my alias hasn’t tipped you off, I am based in Australia, so I comment on the above story knowing only what I have heard from my peers and read about. I’d like to hear any comments from US readers that can sum up what the climate is toward the big pharmacy groups in the US and how they run the show. I already can guess some opinions based on what I’ve read, but it will be good for the non-US readers to read comments on this topic as well.
Tags: amcal, ask a pharmacist, ask the pharmacist, ask your pharmacist, bad prescriptions, chemist warehouse, chemmart, chemplus, cvs, discount pharmacy, drug counselling, drug information, drug query, drug question, medication, medication administration, medication question, national pharmacies, pharmacist, pharmacist pharmacy studying pharmacist ask your pharmacist blog pharmacy technician, pharmacy, pharmacy counselling, quesiton a pharmacist, question, question a pharmacist, rite aid, studying pharmacy