6 Common Medication Errors Independent Pharmacy Owners Need to Help Their Teams Avoid

The world of healthcare has many stressful elements to it. For those of us in pharmacies, we are often the final point of healthcare contact for many people tackling a health condition. And this can mean we are often on the front line of receiving complaints, anger or just confusion from patients.

Often, it is not the fault of the pharmacy, rather a misinterpretation by the patient but there are times when we as pharmacists make mistakes that could lead to series consequences for the patient or us as a business.

How do we fix prescription errors from happening again though? Training? Rehiring? Or call on the medication manufacturers to make things more simplified so information can be communicated better? Well, the answer lies in all three.

You want your pharmacy to operate at its best, so at times, it will need refining, but at the same time, if your team are not educated properly their mistakes can sometimes be of your own causing. Further to this, if the manufacturers are overcomplicating things or missing out information, there is only so far you can train your employees.

So, as a result, we looked through some of the most common mistakes made in pharmacies and how you may be able to rectify them.

1. Dispensing the wrong medication

Prescriptions have come a long way since the scrawled notes handed over by a doctor where an interpretation of what is prescribed is more or less a lottery. These days, they are either sent electronically or printed out allowing for a much easier-to-understand document. However, mistakes are still prevalent. Reading the prescription too fast could lead to the wrong medication being handed over, or where it is correct, the wrong dose may be given.

This sounds simple enough but, in some pharmacies, KPIs are based on speed, rather than efficiency and this is where problems can originate.

If you have noticed or become aware that the wrong medication has often been handed over in your pharmacy, spend some time with your team. Cover the process of reading and re-reading the prescription. You’ll be surprised how many people skim-read.

Then look at your shelves and storage, are things labelled clearly, where you abbreviate, are you doing so appropriately? And finally, if you have set your team or yourself a speed-based target, think about removing it and focusing on the quality of service instead.

2. Incorrect numbering on medication or prescriptions

An additional zero or a decimal point in the wrong place can have huge effects on both the patient and the pharmacy. If it appears on the medication, the patient could take too much or too little of what is meant to be helping them. An overdose may prove fatal or problematic and a dose too small could lead to the health complication getting much worse. For the pharmacy, issuing incorrect levels of medication has the cost implication of you needing to resupply more frequently than you should need to.

To rectify this, the simplest option is to ensure the label or prescription is examined before handing anything over. Should there be confusion, you could consult the issuing doctor to see if the dosage is correct. Then check your stock levels and ordering. Have you noticed a sudden increase in the reordering of a certain medication? If so, it could be that you have a fault within your systems that is causing the wrong levels of drugs to be issued.

3. Misinformation given to patients

With the correct training, this shouldn’t happen, but we must accept that mistakes do occur from time to time. In the world of healthcare though those mistakes must be minimized. The opportunity to overdose, mix incompatible medicines or suffer from variable side effects are all possibilities if incorrect information is given to a patient.

The easiest way to remove these possibilities is to ensure the patient is informed about the potential side effect of the medication, in addition, you should investigate whether the patient has any allergies or is taking other medications. Certain medications cannot be mixed, and should you issue one that reacts badly with another, you could be exacerbating the health problems of the patient. Lastly, ensure dosage information and allergy information are coherently relayed to avoid any confusion for the patient. Emphasize the importance of these checks with your team to avoid potential slip-ups.

4. Getting medication muddled

There are many drugs in circulation with similar sounding names and appearances. Sometimes, the packaging further adds to possible confusion by looking similar too.  In a well-run pharmacy this shouldn’t happen but again, we understand, mistakes can arise from time to time. A good example of how medications can easily be muddled is hydralazine and hydroxyzine. One treats high blood pressure whilst the other helps with anxiety. If these medicines were to be handed out the wrong way around, the patient could suffer quite badly with adverse effects.

Whilst it sounds common sense to check the medications before dispensing them, you can also go further by storing the similar-sounding or looking items apart from each other. With the spelling being similar too, it certainly doesn’t help to have parts of the drug’s name shown in upper case to help distinguish it, for example, HyDROXyzine.

5. Medications issued to the wrong patient

Whilst not as common as some of the points mentioned above, it does sometimes happen. A queue has formed, and you are serving the patients that have come to collect their medications, but in error, a bag or box has been handed to the wrong patient. With the patient potentially unaware due to the confusing sounding name of the medication, or due to the level of trust they put in their pharmacy, there is the chance of them engaging in a medication regimen that will not give the results they require.

To stop this from happening, ask for the patient to confirm their identity with a driving license or other form of ID. This way should there be patients with similar sounding names, you can differentiate between the two and hand the correct medicine to the correct person. You can also brief your teams on the importance of double-checking the patient’s name and the medication being issued.

6. Failed deliveries of time-sensitive or temperature-sensitive medication

If your pharmacy offers a delivery service for its medication either through an outsourced pharmacy courier network or an in-house pharmacy delivery service, it needs to run smoothly. With the incorrect setup, patients can have deliveries not reach them on time or have them delivered in a manner not suitable to the correct handling the medicine requires. As a result, you have medications left on doorsteps, getting warm, eventually becoming totally inefficient. In some cases, you may have it that due to a lack of route optimization, your delivery team have failed to establish the best methods to get their deliveries out promptly.  This can lead to patients missing out and, in some cases, suffering as a result.

The solution here is easy, look for software that integrates with what you already have but allows you to capture proof of delivery, optimize your routes, allow tracking for both patient and pharmacy and act as a full prescription delivery portal. For this, you want something like RxMile, a software created for pharmacists by pharmacists to enable efficient, compliant, and consistent medication delivery.

We are sure that for many of you, perhaps even all, these occurrences are rare or maybe even non-existent. As we know though, there is always room to improve and in healthcare, improvement is always welcomed. At RxMile, we want independent pharmacy owners to feel confident in their operations and their teams too. That is why we have created software that allows for a much more streamlined, stress-free and compliant work environment for your pharmacy. Want to see how it can benefit you? Book a free trial today or simply contact us for additional information.