Tuesday, 02/12/08
Pharmacy policies can lead to errors
Volume, speed stressed
By KEVIN MCCOY and ERIK BRADY
USA Today
When Tabitha Jones picked up her stepson's medicine at a Walgreens store in Springfield in 2004, she had no way to know the pharmacy was so busy that its manager had asked for more staffing months earlier to "decrease the pharmacist's stress."
She also had no idea the drug Walgreens gave her that day was a steroid never intended for children, and not the blood pressure drug prescribed to treat Trey Jones' hand tremors and hyperactivity. Walgreens refilled the prescription four times, eventually at double the adult dosage, before the error was caught. The 5-year-old not only went into premature puberty but also erupted in rages.
