Emergency department staffing more pharmacists to cut medication mistakes

Medication errors contribute to over 7,000 deaths nationwide every year so the pharmacists at Children’s, who are on call 24 hours a day, review every prescription and medication order in the ED in real time. Simple things such as confusion between drugs with similar names or bad handwriting can cause these errors, so having the pharmacists review every order provides a safety net for physicians.

Hiring pharmacists is expensive and not feasible for all EDs unless there is a demand. The pharmacists at Children’s can review nearly 20,000 prescription and medication orders in a week. This is especially important since medication errors are three times more likely to occur with child patients than adults.

Source: NPR