Could there be some common sense at Rite Aid?

Several months ago, Rite Aid started a promotion of a 15 minute ready guarantee for up to 3 Rxs or the pt would get a gift card. Three states within days issued a “cease and desist” on the promotion. Who in their right mind would put a time metric on filling Rxs. Now that page […]

The Insanity continues

The North Carolina legislature passed a new law that mandates Pharmacist must get non-validated driver’s license for C-II’s and certain C-III’s. What is really interesting is that the ID can be of the person on the Rx or ANYONE willing to present a ID. Mail order pharmacies are exempt from the regulation BUT.. if the […]

Joint Commission report on fatigue and med errors

The pharmacy alliance (TPA) has been joined (indirectly) by the Joint Commission in pointing out that fatigue can be a major contributor to med errors JC report Unfortunately, JC’s study focuses on shifts longer than 12 hrs… but the increase in errors after 12 hrs.. would not seem to happen just as the clock passes […]

“accidential drug overdose” – no matter what the real cause

http://newsok.com/article/3635678 According to a statement in the Oklahoma City News … according to its website “the state’s most trusted news” The District Attorney from Ada, OK – Chris Ross stated that “It is not unusual for medical examiner to rule a drug overdose death as ACCIDENTAL… they rule on what they can see, and not […]

Here comes another program to fight drug abuse/diversion that won’t work !

the National Precursor Log Exchange (NPLEx) is a national database that officially starts in a lot of state this Jan 1st. In Indiana this program was pushed through the legislature by the Indiana Sheriff’s Assoc and the Indiana State Police. Neither the Indiana Board of Pharmacy nor the Indiana Pharmacists Alliance were involved in getting […]

Press Release – FAA Proposes Sweeping New Rule to Fight Pilot Fatigue

http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=11839 Isn’t it a shame that healthcare bureaucrats (pharmacy, nursing, medical boards) don’t have the same concerns about people’s lives. It is reported that our health care system KILLS 100,000 people every year by medical errors and harms another 1.5 million by medication errors. One plane crash in 2009 and the FAA moves slowly -albeit […]

7 Things Highly Productive People Do – RPH – compare this to your environment

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=980134975&gid=1827349&type=member&item=85441645&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inc.com%2Filya-pozin%2F7-things-highly-productive-people-do.html&urlhash=LIc-&goback=.gmr_1827349.gde_1827349_member_85441645 1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. 2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. 3. Be militant about eliminating distractions 4. Schedule your email 5. Use the phone. […]

Has Express Scripts taken on one too many fights at the same time?

First it was the stand-off with Walgreens over how much more money they thought they deserved than Walgreens over filling Rxs. As of this writing, it looks like neither one is going to blink or back down. Then there is the issue of them buying/merging with Medco… these two entities generate 2.5 BILLION in net […]

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem

This week I had an exchange of emails with the director of a state board pharmacy. The discussion was about getting Pharmacists and other healthcare professionals permission to get access to the state’s driver’s license database. There are some 35 odd states that have active and functioning PMP (Prescription Monitoring Program Databases) and have been […]

Can the search for efficiency lead to carelessness?

There is a old saying “..the faster I go the behinder I get …” over the last couple of decades the pharmacy profession has been throwing both ancillary staff and “electronic helpers” to allow us to be more “efficient”. We seem to now reached a point that we are continuing to “tweet” the efficiencies of […]