Exploration into the Reduction of Pharmacy Dispensing Errors

RESEARCH
DISSERTATION -
Exploration into the reduction
of pharmacy dispensing
errors.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Aim & Objectives........................................................................................................................3
Research Questions......................................................................................................................3
Rationale......................................................................................................................................3
Background..................................................................................................................................4
Significance.................................................................................................................................5
Dissertation Structure..................................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................6
Theme 1: Exploring the issue of pharmacy dispensing errors in UK..........................................7
Theme 2: Interventions in which pharmacy dispensing errors occur and impact on patients...10
Theme 3: Mitigation of pharmacy dispensing errors in the hospital settings............................12
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................13
Research type.............................................................................................................................13
Research design.........................................................................................................................14
Research approach.....................................................................................................................14
Research philosophy..................................................................................................................15
Data collection...........................................................................................................................15
Sampling technique...................................................................................................................16
Data analysis..............................................................................................................................16
Ethical considerations................................................................................................................17
Reliability and validity..............................................................................................................17
Limitations of the study.............................................................................................................18
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................19

Topic: To explore into the reduction of pharmacy dispensing errors while treating the patients
of UK.
INTRODUCTION
Aim & Objectives
Aim: To explore the ways in which pharmacy dispensing errors can be reduced by the
pharmacists of UK.
Objectives
 To analyse the problem of pharmacy dispensing errors in the hospitals of UK.
 To evaluate the interventions in which pharmacy dispensing errors can occur and their
effects on the patients.
 To reduce and control the pharmacy dispensing errors in the hospital settings of UK.
 To examine the outcomes which can be achieved by reducing and controlling the errors
of pharmacy dispensing?
Research Questions
 How the pharmacy dispensing errors became the major problem in the hospitals of UK?
 What are the interventions in which the pharmacy dispensing errors can occur and what is
its effects on the patients?
 How can the issue of pharmacy dispensing errors can be reduced or controlled in the UK
hospital settings?
 What are the outcomes after reducing and controlling the pharmacy dispensing errors?
Rationale
The pharmacy dispensing errors are becoming the leading cause of mortality as it is 21%
of all the medication errors. This started increasing the burden on society by adding the costs of
the healthcare. This also results in litigation which can prove to be expensive which can also
result in enhanced costs for the coverage of professional liability insurance. This becomes
traumatic for both the patient as well as pharmacist therefore the hospitals realizes the need to
reduce the number of dispensing errors which also became the goals of every pharmacy. This
was also observed that only two-thirds of the total dispensing errors reach the patient actually
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and actual harm is caused by only few (Abdel-Qader and et.al., 2020). But these must be reduced
as prevention is better than cure. The pharmacies in UK realizes the need to minimize these
errors by developing and implementing various strategies. They need to know the various
methods in which they can reduce the effect of this issue. The in-patient pharmacies of UK are
facing more dispensing errors as compared to the out-patient pharmacy. These included the drug
omission, wrong drugs, wrong strength of drugs, wrong dosage form of drugs, wrong quantity of
drugs and many more. Therefore, the research will be based on reducing these errors in order to
increase the effectiveness of the treatment given by the pharmacists (Shawahna and et.al., 2016).
Also, the most of the pharmacies realized that the most important factor which contributed in the
increasing number of dispensing errors is the insufficient number of pharmacists. Therefore, they
also identify the need for the sufficient number of pharmacists to be posted during the peak hours
especially at the filling section along with minimizing the dispensing errors in the in-patient
pharmacy.
Background
The pharmacy dispensing error is basically a discrepancy between the prescription and
the medicine which is delivered by the pharmacist to the patient or in distributing to the ward in
terms of prescription which can include the dispensing of medicine with the informational
quality or inferior pharmaceutical. These errors include the medicines with similar names,
incorrect picking of medicines, medicines with similar packaging, dispensing out-of-date
medicine, transpose of label or labelling the medicine incorrectly, not dispensing against the
prescription, incorrect labelling etc. (Kenawy and Kett, 2019). The report is therefore an attempt
to explore the reduction of the dispensing errors in the pharmacies of UK so that the patients can
get the treatments correctly and can be able to gain the best outcomes after the treatment. The
PICO framework can be used to reduce some of the problems by identifying the problem which
is the dispensing error, the intervention such as medication, exercise etc., controlling of the
dispensing errors and the outcomes which can be gained by reducing the errors such as improved
quality of life, clinical well-being etc. The targeted audience is the people of UK who undergoes
treatment because of facing any sort of disease (Aldhwaihi and et.al., 2016). Therefore, the
problem of dispensing errors in the pharmacies of UK will be elaborated along with highlighting
the ways in which these errors occur. The research will also shed light on the ways in which
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