Common Reasons For Return

Anyone that is picking up controlled medication must show a government issued ID per South Carolina state law. The name of the person picking up the medication, ID number and expiration date of the ID are written on the HIPPA release information that is printed out and signed by that person. This release form is then scanned into the computer and linked to that specific prescription number. Issues or discrepancies as to who and when that specific prescription was pick up can then be looked at with the help of a program loaded onto the pharmacy computers.

PRN medication can be ordered on a repeat prescription, along with any other medication the service user may be taking. However care must be taken to check existing stock levels in order to avoid the over-ordering of medication. If stock levels are sufficient enough to last until the next order date they should be left off the repeat order.

Goal three by the National Patient Safety Goal for 2014 is to use medicines safely. Many errors occur regularly with medications which is why communication is so important with the doctors, nurses and patients. One process that Joint Commission requires in accredited HCO’s is medication reconciliation “creating the most accurate list possible off all medications a patient is taking, including drug name, dosage, frequency, and route, and comparing that list against the physician’s admission, transfer, and/or discharge orders with the goal of providing correct medications to the patients at all transition points within the hospital (Finkelman & Kenner, 2012, p. 388)”. Ensuring medication reconciliation to the patient, health providers and any new consults that are

The common causes for these errors are poor communication, ambiguities in product names, directions to be used, medical abbreviations or writing, poor procedures or techniques, or patient misuse due to to poor understanding of the directions of the medications.

3. Medication errors, handoff process and information quality. Chiru, Alina M; Baxter, Ryan. Business Process Management Journal 19.2, (2003): 2011-2016

* Have a written policy in place, which describes the local procedure for recording of unwanted medication to be returned to the pharmacist.

- The chemist’s role is to dispense the medication that is written on the prescription. It is his/ her responsibility to make sure that the items they give out are correct and are exactly the same as what is written on the prescription. If there are any mistakes then they should contact the doctor who prescribed the medication.

Medication Reconciliation is defined by the Joint Commission as the process of checking and rechecking a patient’s current medication list to the patient’s orders. Within a MedRec program, three steps must be followed to ensure patients have the correct medications at admission and discharge: Verification, Clarification, and Reconciliation (Greenwald et al., 2010; Ruggiero et al,. 2015). MedRec should not occur once, but multiple times especially when a patient moves from department to department. The more a patient moves, the more liable they are for a medication error due to poor communication. MedRec is done for the simple reason of catching those medication errors and correcting them before they can do any harm (The Joint Commission, 2006). Medication errors effect nearly 1.5 million people who enter the hospital setting in the USA. At least every patient has one medication discrepancy between admission and discharge, which leads to rehospitalizations due to hospital-setting medication errors (Institute of Medicine as cited by Wilson et al,. 2015). With nurses at the forefront of a patient’s medication regime, pressure is put on them to provide the necessary education and safety to prevent medication related rehospitalizations. Included in the causes for medication errors is miscommunication between departments taking care of the same patient (Allison et al., 2015). Many medication errors are preventable by the implementation of electronic orders. The use of electronic

Why pharmaceutical reps leave samples with doctors: The representatives leave samples with doctors because it is a marketing ploy. They know it influences how they will write prescriptions to the patient even though the drug they leave may not even be the best drug for the patient. They use the prescription records that the pharmacies sell to certain companies Distribution companies track 70% of filled prescriptions in pharmacies and can track the individual physicians so they can figure out what prescriptions those physicians are most often writing for the patients. Drug reps then aim for these specific doctors and press them into writing prescriptions for their brands of drugs. They also do this to increase their awareness of these drugs.

Medication errors are focused on: terms and definitions; incidence of and harm; risk factors; avoidance; disclosure, legalities & consequences (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Medication errors categories have been developed by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Examples of these categories are based on prescribing, omitting drugs not administered, timing, unauthorized drug, wrong dosage, wrong preparation, expired drug, not using laboratory data to monitor toxicity (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Additionally, this article examines in depth common causes leading to medication errors, drug nomenclature, similar sounding drugs, unapproved abbreviations and handwriting, medical staff shortages and manufacturer medication shortages. Even though this article provides an informative overview for physicians, other allied health personnel may benefit too. This is valuable knowledge for the health care professional not just physicians in order to provide safe care for their

There are four important steps at Walgreens to ensure the prescriptions are dispensed accurately and safely. The four steps has its own buttons on the computer screen system and allows for the pharmacists and the technicians to see at what step the patients’ medications are. The first step is the Rx entry. All prescriptions in the Rx entry can be found by pressing the F1 key. This step is where all the prescriptions and E-scripts go in. All the patients’ information, insurance, and prescription information is entered into the system. All the refills, new scripts, and even insurances rejections are handled at this step. Once the prescriptions went through, any hardcopy prescriptions will be scanned onto the computer and will move on to the next step.

At the end of the medication round facility X’s policy and procedures state that the trolley shall be cleared of all items, washed down with alcohol cleaner, cups and spoons washed in hot soapy water and drug chart folder is to be wiped down then everything is to be put back together on the trolley again.

According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, “Medication reconciliation is the process of creating the most accurate list possible of all medications a patient is taking — including drug name, dosage, frequency, and route — and comparing that list against the physician’s admission, transfer, and/or discharge orders” (Institute For Healthcare Improvement, n.d). This process includes three steps: collecting the medication history, ensuring that the medications and dosages are appropriate for the patient, and documenting the changes in the orders. This occurs when the patient is admitted, transferred and discharged from the hospital (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2011). The purpose is to avoid any duplications, incorrect

Set-up and workflow of my pharmacy is pretty good for patient centered care. Patient does not have to wait too long for their prescriptions to be filled. Patients can call for their refills via telephone or online, which makes their life easy as they don’t have bother coming in-person for refills. Patient profile shows all medication history as well as number of refills remaining. This makes it easy for pharmacist to know whether to refill a prescription or call doctor for refill request. After confirming to fill a prescription pharmacist runs claim through insurance and print label after claim is successful. All medication is arranged alphabetically on shelves, thus it is easy and quick to retrieve. Then after technician fills medication and then pharmacist checks it. This workflow is quite smooth and quick to process. Final check is done by pharmacist, who confirms right medication for right patient as well as the NDC dispensed, amount dispensed, direction for use, and day supply. All these steps of process take place on working table in sequential order, which helps to reduce errors in filling and have effective prescription filling. Once the prescription is filled pharmacist do all paper

The data entry stage has two major problems. The first problem is drug utilization review (DUR). As showed by PSI team for the pharmacy fulfillment process, DURs arise frequently and pharmacists must waste time to intervene. CVS’s central database of customer fails to update and understand customers’ newest condition, so that the issue of DUR triggers customer’s dissatisfaction and wastes a lot of time for pharmacists. The second problem in the data entry stage is no refill allowance. Many customers may lose track of how many refills that were allowed and drop off an ineligible script