Global News: Mother says pharmacy misfilled baby’s prescription
UC's Neil MacKinnon weighs in on medication mistakes and actions to correct them
A Canadian mother to a five-month-old said she had been to a Shoppers Drug Mart three times prior to fill her daughter's anti-reflux medication. But it was during the fourth visit that she said she was instead given an opioid. Luckily, the mother read the label before giving the child the medication.
Canada has taken steps to identify and control pharmacy errors, to include the Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety program, which require medication incidents to be recorded into an independent third-party database.
In response to Global News' request for information, OCP revealed a summary of the program's outcome thus far. According to the latest data, over a 15-month period — February 2018 to May 1, 2019 — there were 4,426 "medication events" at the pharmacies in Ontario enrolled in AIMS.
UC's James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy Dean Neil MacKinnon, who researches medication errors, contributed to the article.
Feature photo credit: Unsplash
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