California annual pharmacy prescription errors are 5 million and counting

From the Los Angeles Times newspaper online, a follow-up article in today's paper discusses how to safely get prescriptions filled in California:

www.latimes.com...

For the original LATimes pharmacy error investigation lead article, an iPhone view of the online LATimes Business Section shows the free full text of the first article in this series, which started on Tuesday September 5th, 2023. That 1st article, titled "California pharmacies are making millions of mistakes. They're fighting to keep that secret", also discusses how the California state legislature is now working on new state management regulations for pharmacies statewide.

In most US jurisdictions, a number of independent (non-corporate and non-chain) and hospital-based pharmacies maintain high professional standards in filling prescriptions.

I read somewhere that medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in this country. I wonder if pharma is included in that statistic. Googled it ... Over 250,000 people in the U.S. die each year because of medical errors, making it the third leading cause of death in this country behind heart disease and cancer, according to a Johns Hopkins study.

a reply to: FlyersFan ---- great question ... I'll have to look into that, but my recollection is that US pharmacy mistakes are tabulated separately from medical mistakes . For one thing, in at least the last 100 years in the US, there have been so *many* medical mistakes, that the US pharmacists probably don't want to have pharmacy errors lumped in with the medical ones. I'll have to look for my book on medical mistakes (author is Gary Null, PhD), but US medical errors are or have been upwards of a quarter million yearly for at least the last 30 years.

Will electronic medical records help reduce the MD error rate? That is possible. I used to install medical software, which varies a lot in its scope and depth.

The thing that jumped out at me from the first LATimes article this week on California prescription mistakes is what a new issue this is, unlike medical mistakes, which are not a new problem. I'm looking at you, California corporate-owned pharmacies.

a reply to: Uphill

This is why I actually examine the pills in any prescription refills.

Don't trust the label. Look at the pills and the markings on them. If it is a first time prescription, you can look it up online to see what it is supposed to look like and be marked with.

You are always your own last defence.

a reply to: beyondknowledge2 ---- yessssss, our family is now doing the same thing. I almost never need a prescription, but another family member must take a few prescription meds for a chronic serious condition. We plan to start getting our prescriptions filled at Cedars-Sinai hospital pharmacy ... both that hospital and their pharmacy have been cited for medical and management excellence in recent years.

A dozen years ago I had to return pills to the pharmacy that were wrong, they were someone elses pills and I got theirs. I also had that happen with my mothers meds a few times when we were taking care of her. With all the people on meds these days, the pharmacies employees are overworked and then make mistakes. It is almost like a production line in our local pharmacy these days, you have to wait for forty five minutes or more some times to get a prescription. Good thing there is a restaurant about three buildings away.