No one likes to think about it but sometimes pharmacists botch prescriptions. They’re human. More than 100,000 Americans die each year of adverse drug reactions, according to a Journal of the American Medical Association report. By law, all pharmacies must operate an incident/error handling system, which generates data from incidents to prevent or reduce mistakes. The system also identifies misuse and abuse issues associated with particular products. Consider it the no-fly list of pharmacies. (If, say, the same person is trying to fulfill Oxycontin in neighboring states, a red flag goes up.)
New cloud-based applications like Pharmapod now also allow pharmacists to learn from “near misses” — when an error occurred that didn’t reach the patient. Pharmapod uses a data procedure called “pseudonymisation” to protect patient data and allow pharmacists to report near misses using pseudonyms. According to Pharmapod: “Anonymous reporting is a key feature of the system– creating a blame-free environment whereby valuable information pertaining to patient safety and pharmacy standards can be shared.”
