Prescription Errors Continue to Happen

Walgreens recently announced its third quarter results. According to an Associated Press Article published in the New York Times, Walgreens pharmacy sales were up 4.5 percent for the quarter over last year. There was no mention in the article about whether pharmacy errors were also up. That is because there is no National requirement to report them. Only the pharmacies themselves really know the statistics on how many prescriptions are misfilled and how many lead to injuries. Some have suggested the error rate is about 3 percent. However, one thing is clear, prescription mistakes continue to happen.

Alison Young of the Atlanta Constitution recently wrote an enlightening article on the subject. In the article she describes the personal stories of several consumers that recieved the wrong medicine or wrong dose of medicine. She pointed out that CVS, Rite Aid, Kmart and Kroger, the leading pharmacy chains in Georga, have issued statements saying that safety is their top priority and that they all have systems to ensure prescription accuracy.