Important Actions Community Pharmacies Need To Take To Reduce Potentially Harmful Dispensing Errors

While healthcare consumers across the US are facing the ever-growing health threat from a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, there remains another unresolved national problem continuing to generate serious and chronic public health issues. Medication safety is a serious issue that does not get enough focus. As health professionals and leaders in pharmacy, we must never turn a blind eye to the unresolved safety challenges taking place every day in community/ambulatory pharmacies. Pharmacists and technicians are working longer and harder than ever; they are already stretched to their limits, which makes errors more likely. In order to address this national problem, there are several simple and straight forward actions that support medication safety that pharmacy owners, supervisors and executive leadership need to have in place to make a difference.

Join the ISMP faculty as they illustrate preventable mistakes and hazardous conditions in community-ambulatory pharmacy practice, representing all steps of the medication dispensing process. Using the newly revised resource High-Alert Medications in Community/Ambulatory Healthcare as a backdrop, faculty will highlight common high-alert medications, error-prone processes, and often overlooked strategies. In addition, faculty will provide fresh insight into the proactive steps every community/ambulatory pharmacist or technician can take to prevent medication errors and vaccination errors from reaching the consumer.