The Effectiveness of Early Interventions in Altering Medication Error Trends

Abstract

When there is the occurrence of medication errors, the resultant costs pose a negative effect on the retail pharmacy business sector’s profitability. Since 2010, the error rates in developed zones such as the U.S have been documented to be about 0.1%. Despite this trend, with billions of prescriptions filled every year, millions of errors related to prescription dispensing continue to be reported. The annual costs associated with these errors are over 16 billion. Therefore, this multiple study employed a performance prism theory to explore some of the strategies through which pharmacy managers in the retail sector could reduce prescription errors and, in turn, reap from the perceived benefit of increased profitability. Company records that were used to collect data included balance sheets, income statements, and quality improvement incident reports. In relation to data analysis, methodological triangulation was employed, as well as Yin’s 5-step process of data compilation, disassembly, reassembly, interpretation, and conclusion. From the findings, it is evident that profit increase results from the strategy of error reduction, with several parameters playing a moderating role.