OBJECTIVES: To measure dispensing accuracy rates in 50 pharmacies located in 6 cities across the United States and describe the nature and frequency of the errors detected. DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTINGS: Chain, independent, and health-system pharmacies (located in hospitals or managed care organizations). PARTICIPANTS: Pharmacy staff at randomly selected pharmacies in each city who accepted an invitation to participate. INTERVENTION: Observation by a pharmacist in each pharmacy for 1 day, with a goal of inspecting 100 prescriptions for dispensing errors (defined as any deviation from the prescriber's order). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Dispensing errors on new and refill prescriptions. RESULTS: Data were collected between July 2000 and April 2001. The overall dispensing accuracy rate was 98.3% (77 errors among 4,481 prescriptions; range, 87.2%-100.0%; 95.0% confidence interval, +/- 0.4%). Accuracy rates did not differ significantly by pharmacy type or city. Of the 77 identified errors, 5 (6.5%) were judged to be clinically important. CONCLUSION: Dispensing errors are a problem on a national level, at a rate of about 4 errors per day in a pharmacy filling 250 prescriptions daily. An estimated 51.5 million errors occur during the filling of 3 billion prescriptions each year.
OBJECTIVES: To measure dispensing accuracy rates in 50 pharmacies located in 6 cities across the United States and describe the nature and frequency of the errors detected. DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTINGS: Chain, independent, and health-system pharmacies (located in hospitals or managed care organizations). PARTICIPANTS: Pharmacy staff at randomly selected pharmacies in each city who accepted an invitation to participate. INTERVENTION: Observation by a pharmacist in each pharmacy for 1 day, with a goal of inspecting 100 prescriptions for dispensing errors (defined as any deviation from the prescriber's order). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Dispensing errors on new and refill prescriptions. RESULTS: Data were collected between July 2000 and April 2001. The overall dispensing accuracy rate was 98.3% (77 errors among 4,481 prescriptions; range, 87.2%-100.0%; 95.0% confidence interval, +/- 0.4%). Accuracy rates did not differ significantly by pharmacy type or city. Of the 77 identified errors, 5 (6.5%) were judged to be clinically important. CONCLUSION: Dispensing errors are a problem on a national level, at a rate of about 4 errors per day in a pharmacy filling 250 prescriptions daily. An estimated 51.5 million errors occur during the filling of 3 billion prescriptions each year.
Authors: William T Basco; Myla Ebeling; Sandra S Garner; Thomas C Hulsey; Kit Simpson Journal: Clin Pediatr (Phila) Date: 2015-05-13 Impact factor: 1.168