Pharmacists’ warnings ignored in US

CONCERNS that unreasonable expectations and high levels of stress experienced by pharmacists working for large US pharmacy groups are being glossed over by consultants under orders from senior management, The New York Times reports.

The paper has published several articles in over the last three weeks highlighting pharmacists’ fears that they could be putting patients at risk by ignoring safety procedures, because they have been working in high stress environments (PD 03 Feb).

In its latest piece, The New York Times said pharmacists had told consultants working for Walgreens late last year that stress and unreasonable expectations had led to mistakes while filling prescriptions.

“When the consultants presented their findings at Walgreens’s corporate offices this month, there was no reference to the errors and little mention of other concerns the employees had raised,” the article said.

“That’s because senior leaders at Walgreens had directed the consultants to remove some damaging findings after seeing a draft of their presentation, a review of internal emails, chat logs and two versions of the report shows.

“In one instance, Amy Bixler, the Director of pharmacy and retail operations at Walgreens, told them to delete a bullet point last month that mentioned how employees “sometimes skirted or completely ignored” proper procedures to meet corporate metrics, according to the chat logs and the draft report.

“A slide detailing ‘errors resulting from stress’ was also removed.”

Last week American Pharmacists’ Association CEO, Thomas Menighan, said pharmacists were being set up for failure by the corporate pharmacy groups (PD 19 Feb).

“The weight of the potentially dire consequences of filling the wrong prescription or missing dangerous drug interactions is crushing pharmacists, personally and professionally,” he said.

“The solution comes from taking a hard look at how pharmacies are reimbursed and who profits from inadequate patient care.”

MEANWHILE Australian pharmacists who may be experiencing stress or anxiety as a result of concerns over their workload can contact the Pharmacists’ Support Service on 1300 244 910.