Pharmacist gets 6 months in prison for med error

Another example to add to health care reform... protection and tort reform for health care workers. I believe there should be some consequences for disregard and fatal errors. I am sure there is a lot more perspective to this story than we have been made aware. Why is there even a 20% available solution of NaCl? The strongest concentration you would ever give on a RARE occasion is 3% in a critical care environment.

I believe one of the articles said that it's used to mix, once it's mixed, that dilutes it down to a usable level. In a pharmacy, it should be safe. If the staffing in the pharmacy is safe. Just like 10 mg of morphine is safe on a pediatric floor, after all, you'd give that to a giant 15 year old. But with unsafe staffing, you might get busy and mistakenly give it to an infant.
It boils down to this: No amount of education or magical pieces of paper called "licenses" are going to protect patients when we're expected to make do in unsafe situations. That goes for nurses and our pharmacist colleagues.

he should not be in jail .

Well computers are just as humans as the humans that created them. They go down and we go down with them. In such a case there should be safeguards in place. I wonder what happened to the management of the hospital involved.
Sadly when there is an event where a patients safety is at risk and they are harmed in the act, then there should be something done about it.....
All involved should be held responsible and not just the Pharmacist.

This is precisely the reason that incidents don't get reported. What about the others involved in the preperation? Another tragedy due to overwork, under staffed, and generally under paid. "The JUST GET IT DONE" mentality of employers certainly doesn't help. Every aspect of healthcare should be supported by a PROFESSIONAL UNION!! A definate tragedy for the child and family but also for the Pharmacist and his family. Obama needs to take a good look at these type of issues before he tries to overhaul something he doesn't understand. I am tired of hearing about him being called a LIAR during a discussion on healthcare reform. Especially since it was true!!!!

You know what I noticed about the article?

They don't allow nurses to mix IV medications in most facilities.

But they'll let a pharmacy technician which in most states, doesn't even require a college degree.

Please what are the other 11 states? Is Florida one of them?

Technicians do chemo where I work.

I would like to know how an IV bag was prepared with 23.4% saline, because ours comes in 50ml vials. I have never seen anything stronger than 5% in a bag, and that's stored in a separate area. We use the ultraconcentrated saline for TPN preparation, and doctors have ordered it to sclerose varicose veins.

This reminds me of the story a while back about the baby who died because it got something like 10,000 times the zinc it should have in a TPN. The TPN bag was bigger than the baby!

I'm guessing there's more to this story.

How would the nurse have known the contents were incorrect if s/he wasn't involved in its preparation, and the label was correct?

The nurse is ONLY responsible for checking what the bag is LABELED WITH and the ORIGINAL ORDER and then checking to see if it matches the patient...he/she is not responsible for the contents of the bag.

Pharmacy is also responsible for double checking the order...pharmacy is looking for different things...they only look to see if the medication is safe...they have no idea if it's for the right patient unless you work in a facility that requires the physicians med order to be faxed or scanned down to the pharmacy on the original order sheet.

Pharmacy prints the label.

Pharmacy mixes the solution.

If the solution comes up with the label consistent with the original order...there is NO WAY that a nurse can know what is inside of it.

The nurse is NOT responsible in those instances.