Medication Errors, Public Safety and Protecting Your License

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According to the Food and Drug Administration, medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually in the United States. Medication error morbidity and mortality costs are estimated to run $77 billion dollars per year. Patient safety is a major public health concern. PharmCon recognizes the importance of this issue. This application based program emphasizes and promotes public safety, continuous monitoring for accuracy in dispensing, reliability in the transmission of prescription and medication orders, and continuous review and upgrade of pharmacy operating systems.
Pharmacists Educational Objectives:

* Identify the most common types of medication errors and medications involved in fatalities
* Assess the potential impact of a given error on the patient, practitioner, and health care system
* Describe how continuous quality improvement can be used to prevent medication errors in various pharmacy settings
* Implement at least 2 changes to minimize errors in your practice area

Pharmacy Technicians Educational Objectives:

* Define "medication error."
* Describe at least two changes that could minimize errors in your practice area.