Medication Dispensing Errors in Community Pharmacies: A Nationwide Study
- 1 September 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
- Vol. 46 (16), 1448-1451
- https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120204601609
Abstract
The available literature concerning medication dispensing errors provides relatively few studies that focus on community-based pharmacies. This paper presents the results of a nationwide, observation-based study of dispensing errors. Although community-based pharmacies were the primary focus, a small number of health-system pharmacies were also included. Investigators collected information concerning the frequency and type of errors and near errors as well as data regarding a number of task and environmental factors previously correlated with dispensing errors. A total of 5,784 prescriptions were inspected, revealing 91 errors (1.57%) and 74 near errors (1.28%). Errors were categorized as either content (41.76%) or labeling (58.24%) errors. Results are consistent with findings in the available literature. In particular, lighting levels, type of inspection system used (e.g., bar code product verification), number of available employees, and the arrangement of drug stock were significantly associated with both types of errors.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- Psychosocial Factors, Workload, and Human Error in a Simulated Pharmacy Dispensing TaskPublished by SAGE Publications ,2001
- Impact of interruptions and distractions on dispensing errors in an ambulatory care pharmacyAmerican Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 1999
- Research on drug-use-system errorsAmerican Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 1995