The role of the community pharmacist in detecting and decreasing medication errors: a scoping review

Abstract

Introduction: Medication errors, mostly preventable, are among the top 10 causes of death worldwide. Community pharmacists provide professional pharmacy services (PPS) to ensure safer, more effective and efficient use of medications, being professionals who should be included in strategies to reduce medication errors at the primary care level. This work aims to offer an evidence framework on the initiatives carried out by community pharmacists, in Spain, to identify, reduce or eliminate medication errors at different points in the therapeutic chain and propose a classification of the critical points of the therapeutic chain to classify PPS.

Method: Scoping review of international and national databases to obtain published studies where the community pharmacists provide an intervention to detect, reduce or eliminate of medication errors

Results: 39 records have been compiled and have been classified in 7 critical points of the therapeutic chain: (i) 7 in dispensation, (ii) 4 in validation/review of the treatment, (iii) 3 in healthcare transition, (iv) 18 in treatment monitoring, (v) 4 in education to patients and (vi) 3 in minor ailments service.

Conclusions: The PPS carried out at the state level demonstrate that they serve to identify and resolve medication errors and a new classification of the critical points of the therapeutic chain that exist in the community pharmacy is proposed, and it relates to the PPS that are involved in each point.