According to the National
Association of Boards of Pharmacy in USA, there are as many as 7000 deaths
annually from incorrect prescriptions. These Medication Errors can occur in
hospitals or pharmacies and the error may be made by any of the staff involved with
choosing or dispensing medication.
Medication Errors may be of the following
types:
Inappropriate medications:
the wrong medication given for a disease.
Wrong medication: the
patient gets the wrong medication despite the doctor prescribing the correct
one.
Drug name mix-ups: several medications have similar-sounding
names and can be mixed up by doctors or pharmacists.
Wrong medication
combinations: there are numerous types
of medications that should not be mixed, because of side-effects and
cross-reactions when combined.
Adverse reactions to
medications: some people have allergic
or other adverse reactions to certain medications. These are risks and not
necessarily avoidable mistakes if the person has no previous history of a
particular adverse reaction.
Side Effects of
medication: Almost all medications have
some types of side effects. Some are mild and some not so mild. It is almost
impossible to know whether a person will have side effects from a medication.
Non-compliance: the
failure to follow your medication regimen can be a mistake made usually by the
patient.
A survey in the city of
Khartoum revealed that the drug mix-ups due to similar sounding drugs may occur
between Podoxime and Poxidium; Diaxine and Digoxin; Methycobal and Methyldopa; Yesolon
and Yesytion. Each one of these names is a different medicine prescribed for
different diseases. The mix- ups happen more when the prescriber’s handwriting
is not very clear.
Sometimes a Doctor
prescribes Chloramphenicol Eye Drops but by mistake Chloramphenicol Ear Drops
is dispensed to the patient due to unclear handwriting of the words Eye and
Ear.
Sometimes mistakes are
made because the packaging is very similar of different medications. The
bottles of Yexoral and Yamidine look similar and when Pharmacists are very busy
at the counter such mistakes may occur. The former is a mouth wash and the
latter an antiseptic solution.
As a consumer you can
avoid these errors by going back to the Physician with the medication dispensed
to you for verification.
The best way to minimize
Medication Errors is by continuous training and development of Community
Pharmacists and by providing Medical Information Services to Pharmacists.
Community Pharmacists are
recognized as the expert on medicines , the most accessible healthcare
professional, often the first point of contact for patients with health
enquiries and for some the only contact. There are Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP)
guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) which assure quality and
consistency of the service. This enables the Pharmacist to follow good
dispensing procedures which comprises checking the prescription that it is
clinically correct for the patient, checking drug interactions, labeling,
re-checking accuracy against prescription and delivery to the patient with the
appropriate advice about the medication.
Khartoum Medicines
Information Centre (KhMIC) was established by the General Directorate of
Pharmacy –Khartoum State in the year 2000, aiming at developing the
pharmaceutical services provided to citizens and medical care professionals. KhMIC
provides many services including responding to all questions and queries
related to medicines and received from customers using the latest methods.
For the first time in
Sudan, an electronic Patient Medication Record (ePMRx) and Labeling System has
been installed at Khartoum Centre for Pharmaceutical Care Practice (KCPCP).
Dr.Abdelrahman Hamid Ahmed
B.Pharm, M.Sc, PhD, MAPS of the University of Bath, U.K. keeps visiting
Khartoum from time to time to conduct workshops under the Ministry of Health
for Pharmacists. He has introduced MiDatabank, a Windows software application
that enables Medical Information Pharmacists to answer, record, store and
analyse Medical Information Enquiries, Complaints and Adverse Drug Reactions.
Dr. Abdelrahman Hamid Ahmed has made it his mission to upgrade the professionalism
of Community Pharmacists in Sudan and introduce the concept of Medical
Information Pharmacists.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions for Photographs:
Above: Khartoum Centre for Pharmaceutical Care Practice
Below: Dr.Abderahman Hamid Ahmed
