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LOCAL
Pharmacy drug errors may be worst at the start of each month
You may want to avoid your local
pharmacy on the first of the month.
That’s because researchers have determined
that pharmacy errors are greatest when the
month begins. Deaths due to
medication errors increase as much as 25
percent in the first few days of the month,
according to research by a University of
California sociologist. This can be
especially hard on senior citizens, who tend
to buy their medications on the first of the
month. To learn more on this topic, be sure
to also read the related article,
Online pharmacy links under fire;
monopolistic FDA orders search engines to
stop linking to sites it doesn't like.
- In the first few
days of each month,
fatalities due to
medication errors
rise by as much as 25
percent above normal,
according to new
research by University
of California, San Diego
sociologist David
Phillips.
- Published in the
January issue of
Pharmacotherapy, the
journal of the American
College of Clinical
Pharmacy, the study is
the first to document a
beginning-of-the-month
spike in deaths
attributed to mistakes
in
prescription drugs.
- The primary suspect,
Phillips says, is a
beginning-of-the-month
increase in
pharmacy workloads
and a consequent
increase in their error
rates.
- "Government
assistance payments to
the old, the sick and
the poor are typically
received at the
beginning of each month.
- Because of this,
there is a
beginning-of-the-month
spike in purchases of
prescription medicines,"
Phillips says.
- Phillips and his
coauthors examined all
United States death
certificates from 1979
through 2000 to analyze
the 131,952 deaths
classified as fatal
poisoning accidents from
drugs.
- A small number, 3.2
percent, of the deaths
were from adverse
effects of the right
drug in the right dose.
- The study excluded
deaths from overdose of
street drugs or from
intentional poisoning
(suicide or homicide).
- The
beginning-of-the-month
mortality spike was
particularly pronounced
in people for whom the
mistakes proved rapidly
fatal -- those who were
dead on arrival at a
hospital, died in the
emergency department or
as outpatients.
- In this category,
deaths jumped by 25
percent above normal.
- But could it be that
the mortality spike is
due not to pharmacy
error but simply to the
increased number of
people buying, then
consuming drugs?
- If increased
consumption alone was to
blame, the researchers
reasoned, mortality
would be highest in the
groups relying on
government assistance
and therefore purchasing
their medicines at the
start of the month.
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