Pharmacy Mistakes
As the number of prescription drugs consumed by Americans continues to increase, so do the odds that a pharmacy mistake will occur. Common pharmacy errors include misfiling prescriptions with the wrong medication and providing the consumer with the wrong dose of medication. The problems seem to have escalated as the retail drug store industry continues to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions. Their emphasis on increasing shareholder value at times can create a conflict with the pharmacist's duty to look out for the consumers' safety. According to Kevin McCoy and Erik Brady in their February 11, 2008 USA Today article "Five-year-old took wrong medication for two months" there appears to be evidence that corporate policies can contribute to prescription errors.
There are two ways a corporation can increase profits. The first way is to increase revenue. One of the corporate pharmacy policies meant to increase revenue also appears to lead to increased prescription errors. The policy involves encouraging individual pharmacies within the corporate chain to fill a larger and larger volume of prescriptions in a given time period. The encouragement can occur in many different ways. Some corporate chains have guidelines on the number of prescriptions a particular pharmacist should be able to fill in a given time frame. Some focus on increasing the use of pharmacy assistants that are paid less and have less education than pharmacists. Others give bonuses based in part on the volume of prescriptions filled.
The other way to increase corporate profits is to decrease costs. One of the largest cost components for a pharmacy is employee salaries. By decreasing the amount paid to individual employees and decreasing the number of employees necessary to perform the work, the chain stores can increase profitability. However, the emphasis on controlling the budgets, staffing levels, and hours worked of all of the pharmacies within the chain can lead to increased pharmacy mistakes when there are not enough qualified employees to perform job functions safely.
Scott Distasio
Florida Pharmacy Malpractice Attorney
DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022
