Pharmacy Reflective Account

is that pharmacists prepare medications and technicians simply deliver them. This view of their job is both accurate and inaccurate.

In the UK, there are more than 1 billion scripts prescribed and dispensed every year (HSCIC, 2013). There are over 12,000 pharmacies in the UK, and approximately 1.6 million people visit a pharmacy every day (HSCIC, 2013). It is therefore natural to assume that between these 1 billion prescriptions, an error or mistake will be made. Current studies suggest that of all the dispensed medicines, there are approximately 0.01-3.32% errors made in community pharmacy and 0.02-2.7% in hospital pharmacy (James et all, 2009).

CPOE systems have been proven to decrease medication errors and promote patient safety effectively. A study (Patent Safety Primer, 2014) suggested that 90% of medication errors occurred during the ordering or transcribing stages, and a systematic literature review shows that CPOE was able to reduce those errors by 48% compared to paper-based orders ( Radley, Wasserman & Bradshaw, et al. 2013). CPOE systems are effective in reducing medication errors by eliminating problems related to hand writing,

“Handwriting has always been, and will remain, a problem in medicine. A 1979 study showed that it was difficult to interpret about half of all physicians' handwritten orders. Little has changed since then,” (In the long run, penmanship classes for doctors won't do much for patient safety, 2001). This has been an ongoing problem since inception. Therefore, the beginning of the process should be changed in this day and age of technology to have prescriptions entered into computers and handheld devices by the doctor, to ensure accuracy of the medication that is needed to be filled, and electronically sent to the pharmacy. Having a nurse call in prescriptions is a non-value added activity that can be eliminated. This may be expensive at the start to implement, but in the long term, it will save both organizations time, help reduce errors, and add value to the level of service the organization gives. With this change, label errors should also be reduced as well, ensuring the patient receives the correct medicine and dosage.

Said people will have questions about the nature of their medications that will affect their well being. A good pharmacist needs to have the patience to take the time and answer customers’ questions.

As I reflect on my experience of a pharmacy practice, I realize how much of my personality has changed in only few months. The experiences I gained during my first rotation at Walgreens were particularly rewarding, especially those gained while working as a team to achieve a common goal of a patient’s well-being. I did not have any previous experience in the pharmacy setting, therefore I was determined to take advantage of this opportunity to grow and develop skills that are vital to be a good pharmacist. During the rotation, I performed many activities that were assigned by the preceptor, learned new skills and competencies, identified my strengths and weaknesses, and made plans for continued development throughout the journey of pharmacy practice.

This has allowed me to keep up to date with recent breakthroughs in the medical sciences. After acquiring my Pharmacy Technician Certification, I obtained employment at Walgreens pharmacy as a tech. Through work experience placements in a number of pharmacies, I have observed many of the essential practical aspects of a career in Pharmacy, including the processing of prescriptions and the importance of communication when discussing issues with drug interactions with members of the public. Pharmacists give patients a sense of reassurance that they are cared for and instill trust in patients that they are being treated as

After the Pharmacy technicians checks the solution for exactness, and may convey it to the patient. The expert then duplicates the data about the endorsed pharmaceutical onto the patient's profile. Specialists likewise may amass a 24-hour supply of medication for each patient. They bundle and mark every measurement independently. The bundles are then set in the drug cupboards of patients until the administering pharmacist checks them for precision, and at exactly that point is the prescription given to the patients.

It became relatively obvious that this exercise represented a valuable opportunity. Before the exercise, pharmacists in training rarely consider the clinical difficulties of differentiating many different types of medications because of their similar packaging. In the pharmacist's

High Alllert Medications (HAMs) are a special class of drugs that are highly risky and capable of causing harm even under proper use. Consequently, they necessitate the need for Independent Double-Checks (IDC). As such, the nurse verifies the dosage, drug, and route to match the directives of the physician as well as pharmacological requirements (Galbraith et al., 2015). Such drugs include sedatives, opioids, insulin and anticoagulants. IDC minimizes errors asserted to drug name confusion such as heparin/Hespan; lack of knowledge, and confusion from interruption or fatigue. My colleagues implement IDC in spite of the constraints experienced. However, some rare incidences of workarounds occur during weekends or emergencies when no verifier is

"I see your point, Juan. I felt the same way, too. This course was interesting, though, because it didn't focus on crunching numbers. I have some ideas about how we can approach making improvements in prescription accuracy, and I think this would be a great project. We may not be able to solve it ourselves, however. As you know, there is a lot of finger-pointing going on; the pharmacists blame sloppy handwriting and incomplete instructions from doctors for the problem; doctors blame pharmacy assistants like me who actually do most of the computer entry

Working retail pharmacy requires a very good balance of patience, speed, multi-tasking ability, interpersonal skills and stress deflection. From my experience with working with different pharmacists -- I have no doubt that every single one of them is exceptionally bright individuals -- but if they have trouble with any of those skills, their job gets exceptionally harder; not only for themselves but for everyone in the pharmacy.

A Pharmacovigilance system, similar to any system, is described by its structures, procedures and results. A mind boggling and fundamental relationship exists between wide scopes of accomplices in the act of medication healthcare checking. These accomplices should mutually suspect, comprehend and react to the ceaselessly expanding requests and desires of people in general, healthcare executives, approach authorities, legislators and healthcare experts.

Not only does the electronic method of prescribing save time, it has also cut down on the number of accidents caused by the misinterpretation of handwriting. Although now almost obsolete, hand-written prescriptions have been the cause of many medical errors because certain sound-alike or look-alike drugs have, in the past, been incorrectly substituted for one another. A report given by the insurance company, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield disclosed that if all physicians were to begin using electronic-prescription systems, “more than two million adverse reactions or events – ranging from inconsequential to severe – could be avoided each year” (wgrz.com). According to pharmacist and associate director for the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Drug Safety, Jerry Phillips, “Six-hundred sound-alike or look-alike drug pairs have been identified as possible sources of error since 1992” (nytimes.com). For example, Lamictal, a mood-stabilizing anticonvulsant, is quite similar in spelling to Lamisil, an antifungal drug. Because of these strong similarities, it is not difficult to understand how easy it could be for medical personnel to mistake certain medications. But with e-prescribing, because the prescription is sent directly from the prescriber to the pharmacy, the number of accidents caused by misinterpretation of handwriting has already been

If I want to spend the morning with my wife and go to breakfast, I can do that because I can choose to start work later.