We don't get no respect

It really irks me in the media when I see pharmacies blasted for the mistakes they make. Ya know what? We do make mistakes. Usually we catch them, but occasionally one will get out. Of those that get out, 99% of them we realize what we did and rectify the situation in a timely manner. We are human after all and are not perfect.

Then you have exposes on Dateline and other 'news' outlets exposing such mistakes. Think about what we do in a day. For instance last week, during an eight hour shift, we filled 342 prescriptions. That's one prescription being filled every 43 seconds all day long. On top of that, at last check, our accuracy rate was in the 98th percentile. Funny that these outlets often leave that part out.

What is even more irksome is the fact that they leave out to true culprits of errors, the doctor's office. This was an actual exchange from Friday afternoon:

• Faxed on refills for a Lisinopril 10mg QD #30 prescription
• Received back an authorization for Lisinopril 20mg QD #60, so I called to verify the dose and directions (as it was still QD, but now #60). I was told what I faxed on was the proper dose and directions
  
• Five minutes later we get another fax saying the 10mg is an error and its really supposed to be Lisinopril 30mg

Now think about this, in a period of ten minutes I received three prescriptions for three different strengths. If, for whatever reason, we were extremely busy and three separate people received had that information, how confused would we be? Some more from Friday:

• Faxed on Simvastatin 20mg, received back an okay on Pravatatin 20mg
• Faxed on Gabapentin 300mg BID, received back Gabapentin 600mg TID
• Faxed on APAP 325mg, received back an okay on Aspirin 325mg (note this was a Warfarin patient as well)

How are we supposed to function with errors like this being sent to us? Do you know how often we'll get a script for Amoxcillin only to have, right on the Rx, an allergy to Amoxicillin? Honestly we have to call one of the office's at least a half dozen times a day just to clarify something which should not have been wrong anyway. It could just be the hospitals here, but I saw the same thing when I lived in another state. A lot of it has to do with e-prescribing and picking the wrong item from a drop down menu, but that's no excuse to not double check. Hell we have to triple check things in the pharmacy before they even get out to the patient.

Yet we're the one's who are blamed for screwing up. One mistake out of thousands and thousands of prescriptions, and we're chastised. Never mind the fact that we routinely fixed a dozen errors a day, that doesn't matter.

To paraphrase the late Rodney Dangerfield "We don't get no respect."