Promoting Patient Safety in Community Pharmacy

Promoting Patient Safety in Community Pharmacy
Like

Share this post

Choose a social network to share with, or copy the URL to share elsewhere

This is a representation of how your post may appear on social media. The actual post will vary between social networks

Reducing medication errors still represents a momentous unmet need in society. This is the case even after myriad reports, calls for actions, and laudable efforts by various professional organizations, state boards of pharmacy, federal government agencies, think tanks, academic and practice leaders to address this phenomenon.

Hong et al discuss this issue in a poignant commentary.1 They describe the prevalence of medication errors as having placed a serious medical and economic burden on the U.S. healthcare system. Government health agencies and non-profit organizations in the U.S., such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Institute of Medicine (IOM), and the Joint Commission have undertaken initiatives intended to reduce medication errors, with at least some progress in inpatient settings. They assert, however, that there have been fewer advances in the community setting, and that there has been limited information on community pharmacies’ involvement in reducing and preventing medication errors. Most published studies on medication errors in community pharmacy settings are cross-sectional in design and often confined to just one or a few pharmacies in a single city or small geographic region. To reduce medication errors, improvement strategies such as transparency and bi-directional communication between pharmacists and patients are needed. To improve transparency, the authors recommend that the following questions be addressed by community pharmacy corporations: 1. How does your corporation manage medication errors? 2. Does your corporation collect all medication error data to review systematically? 3. What are some strategies that your corporation utilizes to reduce medication errors? 4. Would your corporation be willing to share its data related to medication errors publicly in an effort to facilitate research in this area, which may promote patient safety in the community setting? The authors also remind us that pharmacists are required by law to counsel patients, and research has shown that counseling can assist with detecting medication errors. By improving transparency in quality assurance processes and promoting patient engagement to improve patient safety, community pharmacies have the potential to play a more active role in reducing medication errors and safeguarding patients from harm.

The fact that counseling helps detect errors in addition to promoting adherence says much for our professional practice. Pharmacy managers can promote a culture of safety through transparency, simple messaging and feedback, reinforcement of patient-centric practice in company mission and values, proper workflow design, and implementation of meaningful quality assurance processes.

Additional information about Ensuring Quality in Pharmacy Operations and Risk Management in Contemporary Pharmacy Practice can be found in Pharmacy Management: Essentials for All Practice Settings, 5e. If you or your institution subscribes to AccessPharmacy, use or create your MyAccess Profile to sign-in to Pharmacy Management: Essentials for All Practice Settings, 5e. If your institution does not provide access, ask your medical librarian about subscribing.

1Hong K, Hong YD, Cooke CE. Medication errors in community pharmacy: The need for commitment, transparency, and research. Res Social Adm Pharm. 2019;15(7):823-826.

Authored by:

Shane P. Desselle, RPh, PhD, FAPhA, Professor of Social/behavioral Pharmacy at Touro University California.

Create a Free MyAccess Profile

AccessMedicine Network is the place to keep up on new releases for the Access products, get short form didactic content, read up on practice impacting highlights, and watch video featuring authors of your favorite books in medicine. Create a MyAccess profile and follow our contributors to stay informed via email updates.