CA tells pharmacies to reduce errors
California’s governor, Gray Davis, recently signed a bill sponsored by the California Board of Pharmacy to reduce the number of people injured by medication errors. The new law requires all pharmacies to establish quality assurance programs that evaluate medication errors and identify changes that can prevent those errors from recurring, according to Board president Bob Elsner.
"Patients in California will receive better, safer pharmaceutical care because Governor Davis has signed this important consumer protection bill," he says. "California is leading the way by being the first state in the country to require such a patient safety program in all pharmacies."
Quality assurance processes have a record of success in other areas of health care, and applying quality assurance processes to the dispensing of prescription drugs should substantially reduce the number of medication errors. In fact, last year’s report issued by the Institute of Medicine recommended that state regulators should require health care organizations to implement meaningful patient safety programs.
Elsner says the new law will do just that for California pharmacies. He notes that hospital patients account for a fraction of all prescriptions filled each year. One study found that 4.2% of outpatient prescriptions result in adverse drug reactions. Pharmacies dispense over 2.5 billion prescriptions each year. The California Board of Pharmacy is a consumer protection agency charged with ensuring public safety through licensure and education of practitioners and enforcement of the laws governing the distribution of prescription drugs. Over 70,000 licensees are regulated by the board in twelve major license categories.
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