Mis-fill of Prescribed Drugs occur Frequently

Pharmaceutical industry is at its boom and demand for prescription drugs is increasing day by day. Pharmacists are under high pressures to meet these demands. Nowadays, pharmacist deal with more than hundreds of patient everyday. Thus , they are left with only few minutes to deal with individual patient  and prescribe them medicines. In such situations, mistakes can happen.

According to the reports by State Pharmacy boards, pharmacists are exhausted by the increasing demand for drugs and need more prescriptions. Therefore, they are committing more mistakes. Although in majority of the cases mistakes are minor but sometimes mistakes are grave causing serious health problems.

Because of these dangers, many patients are exposed to the hazardous side effects of prescription drugs. During the period of 1989 to 1999 no. of pharmacists increased by 5% whereas the no. of chemist shops fell. Thus, only few pharmacists filled the prescriptions. It is important to know whether the mis-fill happened because of a deviation of care required to be taken care by pharmacists or it was an accident. Pharmacists who wrote the prescription is responsible for the mis-fill.

When a health care professional or doctor fills a prescription hurriedly in an improper way, a mis- fill happens. It includes improper and inappropriate dispensing of medicines due to dosage or lack of need. In majority of the mis-fills the prescription is filled either with wrong medicine or for the correct treatment, incorrect medicine is prescribed. According to the reports by U.S. Pharmacopeia’s Medication Errors Reporting Program, as many as 314 cases of pharmacy mistakes were recorded in a period of one year.

According to a report by he North Carolina Board of Pharmacy there was 20% rise in prescription mistakes in a period of one year. In Massachusetts, pharmacy board reported that 2.4 million prescriptions were not filled properly each year.

Beyond these reasons, there are certain more for a mis-fill to occur. Illegible handwriting of healthcare professionals is cited as major reason for a mis-fill. Many patients claim that it is very difficult to update with the new drugs in the market. Most of these emerging drugs have similar names but they are used for the treatment of different diseases.

According to various studies, one in 4 prescription mistakes are due to name confusion. Patients should ask questions to their pharmacists about the prescribed medicines.