I began my career in the healthcare industry nearly 30 years ago selling adult disposable diapers for Procter and Gamble. I eventually rose to lead some of the biggest healthcare companies in the world.  I was a vice president at Merck, president at Bristol-Meyers Squibb and later became the president and chief operating officer of Genentech, the world’s biotechnology powerhouse.  Along the way I was credited with the launch of some amazing life-changing drugs including; Prilosec, Plavix and Avastin.

I share my history with you not because I am looking for kudos, but because I have an incredible respect for the pharmaceutical industry.  Some of the best minds in science spend years creating pharmaceutical solutions for some very troubling medical conditions.

Even with all of that said, we as consumers face some daunting challenges when it comes to finding the right pharmaceutical solutions for our conditions.  When it comes to medicine, while they provide great benefit, there is no such thing as “completely safe” medication.  All medicines have risks. However, the process for drug approval around the world has been designed to reduce the risks of medications in the face of what generally are substantial benefits to the quality and length of life.  The FDA approval of a drug means that at the time of approval the benefits are believed by the FDA to outweigh the known risks.
Yes, drugs incorrectly prescribed or not taken correctly can end up doing more harm than good. It is not necessarily the fault of the actual medication.  The responsibility rests on so many shoulders, but most importantly, now more than ever it is YOU the patient, the consumer who must be  incredibly diligent about your medication to avoid any serious injury and receive the real benefits of good drug therapy.

Here are all the moving parts that go into action when a doctor writes a prescription for you.

Sounds Like…
First, your doctor tells you the name of the drug, and basic dosage, and scribbles on a prescription pad.  You hand the prescription that  looks like chicken-scratch to your pharmacy.  The pharmacist fills the prescription and you go home and take the meds like a good patient.  What could possibly to wrong?  A lot actually.

Let’s begin at the top.  You are in your doctor’s office probably not feeling well, maybe even a little nervous and your listening skills are less than optimum.  You think you heard the name of the medication correctly, but did you know that with the great advancements in the availability of medication that there are now hundreds of drugs with similar names that do very different things?  Here are a few examples:  Prilosec and Prozac; Flonase, Flomax and Flovent; and how about Celebrx and Cerebyx.  It is actually pretty easy to mishear something and certainly deciphering the doctors handwriting is often even more difficult.

Pharmacist’s with Prescription Overload….
Now you bring your prescription  to the pharmacist. This pharmacist is working harder than ever because the number of prescriptions written in the past decade has doubled and the number of pharmacists have not kept pace.  Every detail needs to be perfect, but your pharmacist has more phones ringing and insurance companies that are constantly changing coverage policies, while at the same time managed care requirements have further increased the work load on pharmacists who already feel overwhelmed.  Your pharmacist has gone through years of training before he or she can earn a license but all of these additional distractions create an environment that is ripe for human errors in the dispensing of meds.

Patients Not Doing as Directed….
Next, you go home to take the meds as directed.  But do you really?  According to the World Health Organization, noncompliance rates for long-term therapies average 50%.  Not good.

But, I am here to tell you that you don’t need to be one of the scary statistics like this one.  According to the FDA, medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually in the United States.  Are you with me?  Good.  Here we go: 5 Prescriptions You Won’t Find in Your Doctor’s Bag: Medication Mishaps –  Patients Beware.