+8
AUGUSTA MEDiCAL EXAMINER
Pharma cy 4 11
OUR NEWSSTANDS Medical locations: • Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Ctr, 15th St., Main Entrance • Dept. of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Uptown Div., Wrightsboro Rd., main lobby • Doctors Hospital, 3651 Wheeler Rd, ER Lobby Entrance • Eisenhower Hospital, Main Lobby, Fort Gordon • George C. Wilson Drive (by medical center Waffle House and mail boxes) • GHSU Hospital, 1120 15th Street, South & West Entrances • GHSU Medical Office Building, Harper Street, Main Entrance • GHSU Medical Office Building, Harper Street, Parking Deck entrance • GHSU Hospital, Emergency Room, Harper Street, Main Entrance • GHSU Children’s Medical Center, Harper Street, Main Lobby • GHSU, Laney-Walker Boulevard transit stop, Augusta • Select Specialty Hospital, Walton Way, Main entrance lobby • Trinity Hospital, Wrightsboro Road, main lobby by elevators • Trinity Hospital Home Health, Daniel Village, main lobby • University Health Federal Credit Union/ University Hospital Human Resources, 1402 Walton Way, Main Lobby • University Hospital, 1350 Walton Way, Emergency Room lobby area • University Hospital, 1350 Walton Way, Outside Brown & Radiology/Day Surgery • University Hospital - Columbia County, 465 N. Belair Road, Main Lobby • University Hospital Prompt Care, 3121 Peach Orchard Road, Augusta
Around town: • Barney’s Pharmacy, 2604 Peach Orchard Rd. • Birth Control Source, 1944 Walton Way • GRU Summerville Student Bookstore • Blue Sky Kitchen, 990 Broad Street • Columbia County Library, main branch lobby, Ronald Reagan Drive, Evans • Enterprise Mill (North Tower), 1450 Greene Street, Augusta • Daniel Village Barber Shop, Wrightsboro Road at Ohio Ave. • Hartley’s Uniforms, 1010 Druid Park Ave, Augusta • International Uniforms, 1216 Broad Street, Augusta • Marshall Family Y, Belair Rd, Evans • Mellow Mushroom, 12th and Broad Streets, Augusta • Parks Pharmacy, Georgia Avenue, North Augusta • Southside Family Y, Tobacco Road, Augusta • Surrey Center, Surrey Center Pharmacy, Highland Avenue, Augusta • Top-Notch Car Wash, 512 N. Belair Road, Evans • Wild Wing Cafe, 3035 Washington Road, Augusta
Plus... 600+ doctors offices throughout the area for staff and waiting rooms, as well as many nurses stations and waiting rooms of area hospitals.
JULY 24, 2015
Very little if anything about healthcare is inexpensive, and that includes medicine. Tiny pills can command large prices. Over-the-counter medications may be less expensive, but are they also less effective? Find the answers to lots of your drug store questions in this column written by Augusta pharmacists Chris and Lee Davidson exclusively for the Medical Examiner.
HOW TO HELP PREVENT PHARMACY ERRORS
T
errors. The most important thing you can do as a patient is to ask oday we are going to look at medical errors that occur in the retail pharmacy setting. We will also look at ways for the questions if anything looks different than what you expected. If the color, shape, size or markings of the medicine you receive is patient to help protect themselves from taking a prescription different than the same medicine in past prescriptions, call your that contains an error. pharmacist and ask if you received the right medicine. With multiple In the late twentieth century the Institute of Medicine (IOM) manufacturers and the incredible number of medicine backorders released its findings on medical errors and made proposals over the past few years, there is always the possibility of the to reduce errors in the medical field in the United States. The manufacturer of the medicine changing from one refill to the next. report was apply titled To Err Is Human and highlights why the IOM’s aim is not to eliminate all errors from the healthcare field. The next step is to read your prescription label, as well as the Physicians, pharmacists, nurses and important information sheets that come with your prescription. Make sure all other members of the healthcare that the drug name and physician field are human after all, and try as name is correct on your label, we might, an occasional mistake and that the data on your info will happen. The purpose of sheets match up with what you these reports and proposals is were seeing the doctor for. Again, to learn from our mistakes so we call if there is any discrepancies, make fewer mistakes in the years since sometimes medicines are used to come. Based on the report’s Every year some 2.5 billion prescriptions are filled by pharmacies; for what is called an “off-label” use. recommendations, Congress appropriated $50 million to create a the CDC reports 700,000 ER visits and 120,000 hospitalizations each year Off-label use is both common and are caused by adverse drug events (not necessarily errors). legal. What is it? Let’s say the FDA Center for Patient Safety to analyze has approved a certain medicine for errors and develop protocols to a specific use — let’s say lowering blood pressure — but an “offprevent as many mistakes as possible from being committed. This label” side effect has been noticed: people who take it experience will help ensure patient safety and reduce medical costs in the fewer migraine headaches. If someone gets it prescribed for country as a whole. their headaches, they might notice on the package info that it’s There have been many studies on pharmacy error rates and there designed to treat high blood pressure. That would be an excellent have been as many different results as there are studies. The latest reason to call your pharmacist for double-check. large studies show an error rate of about one percent. I have seen Pharmacists would rather answer a hundred phone calls about reports showing much less than this in previous years, but that just different-looking pills than have one patient take the wrong goes to show the variation between studies from year to year. The medication. One other way patients can help prevent errors is studies also show that the vast majority of pharmacy errors are to learn your medicines. You should know why you take each caught in the pharmacy, so the double-check system is working. medicine, what it looks like, and its name, even if pronunciation is Although zero errors is always the goal, it is often not attainable since pharmacies are staffed by humans. Research has shown that difficult. the response taken when errors occur is important. People should Working together we can all make the pharmacy a safer place. + be held responsible for their errors, but a punishing attitude is counterproductive. Learning from our mistakes is still the best Written for the Medical Examiner by Augusta pharmacists Chris and policy. Lee Davidson. Questions, comments and article ideas can be sent by So let’s look at how you can protect yourself from medication email to cjdlpdrph@bellsouth.net
We like you. And we don’t put quotes around “like.” But please “Like” us on Facebook!
P
ARKS
HARMACY
Hometown. Not big box.
437 Georgia Avenue, North Augusta, SC
803-279-7450 parkspharmacy.com