Maryland pharmacy errors can take many forms—an incorrect dosage, for example, or even the incorrect medicine. Perhaps the pharmacist accidentally prints instructions telling the patient to take the medicine twice a day instead of twice a week, or misreads a doctor’s written prescription. Whatever the error, pharmacy errors have one important thing in common: they are more likely to happen when pharmacists are stressed, overworked, and distracted—three things they have been known to be since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With pharmacists and pharmacy technicians overworked and operating in stressful and hectic work environments, it may come as a surprise to many that there has been a significant decrease in the number of pharmacy errors and patient safety incidents being reported since March. According to a Pharmacy Business article, there was a 44.5% decrease in the number of incidents reported during the second quarter of 2020, compared to the first. Additionally, there was a 40.6% decrease in the number of incidents reported compared to the same quarter in 2019. While this may seem like good news, experts say it’s not. In fact, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has asked community pharmacies to report all safety incidents—believing that they are currently not doing so. In a recent update, NPA said that the significant reduction in the number of incidents being reported “may be due to the increased workload and pressure on pharmacy teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby pharmacy teams may not be prioritizing reporting of patient safety incidents.”
It is thus important that Maryland residents understand that a decrease in reported errors probably does not mean an actual decrease in errors—if anything, pharmacy errors are expected to be increasing during this stressful time. Pharmacists are working frantically to fill prescriptions, maintain a safe and clean working environment, and respond to patient requests, with the stress of COVID-19 constantly looming. As such, they are likely to be distracted and hurried, perhaps missing pharmacy errors that could cause significant harm to patients.