The top priority of every single pharmacist is to minimize medication dispensing errors.

Medication errors is one of the top causes of death in the US. 

 Dispensing errors lead to 20% of all of the medication errors.  More so, it can lead to serious morbidity and mortality, issues.  Furthermore, these kinds of  dispensing errors greatly increase the costs of the public’s health care costs. Faulty dispensing may also result in lawsuits.  These are very costly and lead to s in professional medical liability insurance coverage. Dispensing in error is not easy  for the pharmacist.  Hence,  the goal of every pharmacy is to lower the risks of dispensing errors. 

Dispensing errors include any inconsistencis or deviations from the prescription order, such as dispensing the incorrect drug, dose, dosage form, wrong quantity, or inappropriate, incorrect, or inadequate labeling.  Also, confusing or inadequate directions for use, incorrect or inappropriate preparation, packaging, or storage of medication prior to dispensing are considered to be errors.³ Errors occur at a rate of 4 per day in a pharmacy filling 250 prescriptions daily, which amounts to an estimated 51.5 million errors out of 3 billion prescriptions filled annually nationwide.

Dispensing errors are caused by error-prone systems and processes.

For example, an old fashion pill box.  Therefore, the main strategy to reduce dispensing errors is to implement a positive approach rather than a negative approach.  Med-Q Medication Reminder offers the following list of strategies to help to minimizing dispensing errors:

1. Double check when making the correct entry of the prescription.

Transcription errors happen all the time. A leading cause of Medication Dispensing Errors.  For example,  omissions and all kinds of inaccuracies.  In fact, these may  account for 15-20% of all dispensing errors.  These errors can be prevented.  They can reduce them  by consistently using reliable methods to verify patient identity when entering the prescription into the computer’s data base. There are some good rules.  Such as, the Joint Commission says that at least 2 patient identifiers be used before any medications  are given at the hospital . This has shown to reduce the chances of errors due to sound-alike, look-alike names. Other indentifiers are, age of the patient, allergies, concomitant medications, contraindications and other factors.

2. Make sure all prescriptions are complete and correct.

Pharmacists have to decipher some very bad handwriting.  Doctors are famous for their “chicken scrawl”.  Try to guessing illegible writing is a problem.  Pharmacists must try to decipher ambiguous prescriptions with nonstandard abbreviations,.  Worse,  call-in prescriptions  frequently lead to medication errors. If in doubt, call your healthcare professional  to clarify any doubts or questions. Clarification obtained from the physician should be promptly documented. Dr Klien says, “All verbal prescriptions should be immediately transcribed to a blank prescription pad and read back to the caller to ensure that the prescription has been transcribed correctly”.

3. Be careful of pills that look-alike or have  soundalike names.

Similar sounding prescription medication lead to almost 1/3 of all of the medication errors. These types of errors are attributed to something called “confirmation bias”. 

people’s tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with their existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional, and it results in a person ignoring information that is inconsistent with their beliefs

For example, a new, unfamiliar drug may be subconciuoslt read as the old pill.  Hence, Medication Dispensing Errors.  It happens when the more familiar one is what the mind will recognize. These errors can actual be fatal  in some cases.   Such errors can be reduced in a couple of ways.  First, by placing reminders on the different stock bottle .  Second, making proper notes in the computer system .  And third, making sure that all of the staff has been alerted to these commonly confused drug names.

Sponsored By Med-Q Medication Compliance System

4. A source for Medication Errors comes from zeros and abbreviations.

Many times a misplaced zeros or decimal points leads to problems.  Teh wrong numbers  are big factor .  These kinds of misinterpratations leads to 100’s of thousands of medication errors.  A transcription or interpretation error involving a zero or a decimal point can mean the patient may receive at least 10 times more medication  or 10 times less then the needed dose.  Obnviously, this will result in serious consequences.  One way these issues can go away is to use by using computer alerts.  Another way,  stocking a single strength of the medication in the pharmacy. These errors are often caughtif someone reviews the label directions when talking with the patient.   The  ISMP (Institute for Safe Medication Practices) has a long of abbreviations that have shown to be error prone. These include symbols, and dose designations.  Being familiar with this type of information may also help prevent dispensing errors.