|
From either our convenient Raleigh or Eastern North Carolina office in Tarboro, we strive to assist the victims of serious errors while filing prescriptions. Our lawyers have handled cases involving pharmacy malpractice throughout North Carolina, including Raleigh, Cary, Rocky Mount, Wake Forest, Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Greenville, Wilson, Goldsboro and throughout North Carolina.
Our attorneys through representing injured citizens of North Carolina pre-suit, in litigation and in trial have the experience you need not to become a victim twice.
The Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association
published an article entitled, "National
Observational Study of Prescription Dispensing
Accuracy and Safety." in 2003, concluding that
"dispensing errors are a problem on a national
level, at a rate of four errors per day in a
pharmacy filling two hundred fifty prescriptions
daily." ".an estimated fifty one point five million
errors occur during the filling of three billion
prescriptions each year. This figure includes three
point three million errors of potential clinical
importance." Misfilled prescriptions are having direct impact on millions of people per year.
Clearly the industry itself is on
notice that the public should now be tuned in to the
enormous potential problems with misfilled
prescriptions. The problems with misfilled
prescriptions begin with the utilization of
unqualified personnel in retail pharmacy operations.
For the most part, prescriptions are often filled by
personnel who have no more than a high school
education and a limited period of instruction. The
prescription is then laid out on the pharmacist's
counter along with the filled bottle and the
prescription and filling accuracy are quickly
matched by the pharmacist's, approved and then
placed in a bag for customer pick up.
The North
Carolina Board of Pharmacy established a one hundred
fifty prescriptions per pharmacist per day threshold
for citing both the pharmacist and the permit holder
in a disciplinary proceeding. The Board adopted this
threshold level using information presented at the
National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP)
Health Law Officers Conference in Savannah, Georgia
in November of 1996. Experts on this program gave
the range of not more than ten to twenty
prescriptions per hour as established levels of safe
dispensing. A vice president for one national chain
store stated that its standard was five minutes per
prescription for technical function only which did
not include patient counseling and prospective
utilization review. Their standard then would be
something less than twelve prescriptions per hour.
Applications of this data to work schedules lead the
North Carolina Board of Pharmacy to its one hundred
fifty prescription threshold.
Pharmacists throughout the country often exceed this
threshold resulting in a increased chance of error. The large number of prescriptions per
pharmacist per shift is the reason for the
exorbitant number of misfilled prescriptions per
year in the United States.
The reason that
pharmacists are required to fill such a large number
of prescriptions, often far-exceeding the one
hundred fifty per shift threshold established by the
North Carolina Board of Pharmacy, is very simply the
profit motive of the retail pharmacy industry. Many
pharmacists are leaving these large retail chains
that require such huge numbers of prescriptions
filled by pharmacists and going to smaller
pharmacies across the country where they can feel
more secure in filling prescriptions and properly
include patient counseling and prospective drug
utilization review.
While most misfilled
prescriptions do not result in significant injury,
misfilled prescriptions obviously can cause serious
injury and death. The retail pharmacy industry is
literally playing the lottery every day simply
counting on the fact the prospect that misfilled
prescriptions will remain undiscovered, will not
cause significant harm, or the bad results of the
misfilled prescriptions will not come to life.
The
only way for this serious problem to be addressed is
either more stringent regulation or for juries to
hold the retail pharmacies responsible at the trial
level and impose punitive damages intended to make
an example of those pharmacies that overload their
pharmacists so that it is no longer profitable for
pharmacies to do so.
If you or your loved one has had a misfilled
prescription, please
contact our office.
<< Back to
Practice Areas
Email this Page | Print this Page
|
