A fictitious HMO pharmacy faces an enormous number of customer complaints due to inaccurate prescriptions. Juan de Pacotilla (manager), who may be removed from his position if he doesn’t improve the process. Ben Davis, who is the pharmacist assistant, has recently completed a course in statistical thinking and Juan has challenged his charge with finding a viable solution to improve the prescription filling process thus saving Juan de Pacotilla from unemployment.
According to Poquette (2016), there are 6 basic workflow steps when processing a prescription request. They are listed as follows:
1. Drop off Prescription
2. Input
3. Filling
4. Verifying
5. Pickup
6. Consultation Unfortunately, in a study titled “2013 Pharmacist Liability: …show more content…
They are on weekday mornings when patients come before work; at lunchtime; early evenings, as customers headed home from jobs; and just before the store closes. During these peak hours, it would be very difficult for the pharmacist on duty to verify each prescription to avoid errors.
According to Webb (2015), one of the major causes of the wrong drug being dispensed was due to substitution of another drug with another drug with a similar name. The article also blamed “human error”, patient misidentification, and computer coding errors as reasons for pharmacy errors. The root causes of these problems are considered common cause issues. According to Hoerl & Snee (2012), common cause variations are always present, numerous, part of normal behavior, and stable. As Bowen and Neuhauser (2013) indicated: “Managing these variations is essential to quality improvement” (para 1). Six Sigma is an approach to improve quality improvement in business processes. Hoerl & Snee (2012) describes this methodology as a way to discover and eliminate defects and mistakes in these processes and named three major points. They are listed as follows:
1. Viewing the work as a …show more content…
In order to resolve the HMO Pharmacy issues, it is recommended that quality control systems are established and practiced. For example, Dionne, S. (2014) recommended electronic prescribing as a way to ensure that pharmacies receive accurate information. The process includes filling prescriptions utilizing digital authorization and transmission from a qualified healthcare provider directly to a participating pharmacy. This author indicated replacing conventional paper or faxed prescriptions electronically would provide patients with a safer, more accurate, and more efficient way to retrieve their prescriptions. A list of drugs with similar sounding names should be posted and each pharmacy employee should be trained to recognize these names and have this list posted within view of each work station (Webb, 2015). Finally, since 41% of mistakes are made at the computer entry station, it is recommended that only one station be responsible for selecting drug from the shelf, labeling, counting, putting into the bottle, and ensuring that the directions are being followed (Webb, 2015). The dose should be verified by the Pharmacist. If Juan de Pacotilla follow these recommendations, he retain his position at HMO Pharmacy and Ben Davis will receive a well deserved raise and/or
According to Poquette (2016), there are 6 basic workflow steps when processing a prescription request. They are listed as follows:
1. Drop off Prescription
2. Input
3. Filling
4. Verifying
5. Pickup
6. Consultation Unfortunately, in a study titled “2013 Pharmacist Liability: …show more content…
They are on weekday mornings when patients come before work; at lunchtime; early evenings, as customers headed home from jobs; and just before the store closes. During these peak hours, it would be very difficult for the pharmacist on duty to verify each prescription to avoid errors.
According to Webb (2015), one of the major causes of the wrong drug being dispensed was due to substitution of another drug with another drug with a similar name. The article also blamed “human error”, patient misidentification, and computer coding errors as reasons for pharmacy errors. The root causes of these problems are considered common cause issues. According to Hoerl & Snee (2012), common cause variations are always present, numerous, part of normal behavior, and stable. As Bowen and Neuhauser (2013) indicated: “Managing these variations is essential to quality improvement” (para 1). Six Sigma is an approach to improve quality improvement in business processes. Hoerl & Snee (2012) describes this methodology as a way to discover and eliminate defects and mistakes in these processes and named three major points. They are listed as follows:
1. Viewing the work as a …show more content…
In order to resolve the HMO Pharmacy issues, it is recommended that quality control systems are established and practiced. For example, Dionne, S. (2014) recommended electronic prescribing as a way to ensure that pharmacies receive accurate information. The process includes filling prescriptions utilizing digital authorization and transmission from a qualified healthcare provider directly to a participating pharmacy. This author indicated replacing conventional paper or faxed prescriptions electronically would provide patients with a safer, more accurate, and more efficient way to retrieve their prescriptions. A list of drugs with similar sounding names should be posted and each pharmacy employee should be trained to recognize these names and have this list posted within view of each work station (Webb, 2015). Finally, since 41% of mistakes are made at the computer entry station, it is recommended that only one station be responsible for selecting drug from the shelf, labeling, counting, putting into the bottle, and ensuring that the directions are being followed (Webb, 2015). The dose should be verified by the Pharmacist. If Juan de Pacotilla follow these recommendations, he retain his position at HMO Pharmacy and Ben Davis will receive a well deserved raise and/or