Over 50 million dispensing errors occur annually at pharmacies each year, resulting on over seven thousand deaths. Every pharmacy has in place policies and procedures to limit the occurrence of these errors, but harried and understaffed pharmacists often fail to follow them, resulting in serious injury or death to the customer. A pharmacist can commit malpractice in the following ways:
Filling errors, including
Providing the customer with the wrong medication;
Providing the customer with the wrong dosage of medication;
Proving the customer with someone else's prescription;
Proving the customer with too little medication;
Providing the customer with the wrong instructions for the medication;
Drug interaction errors - A drug utilization review (DUR) must be done when filling a prescription to check for allergies to the medication or medication interactions. When the DUR is not done, this can be the basis for a malpractice case against the pharmacy;
Failure to counsel - pharmacists must ensure the medication is appropriate and that the patient knows how to take the medication properly
