Pharmacist Shortage Leads to Greater Concern About Medication Errors

A growing pharmacist shortage caused in part by rising demand for prescription drugs is sparking concerns that medication errors "will increase as pharmacists become increasingly overworked" and that pharmacies will reduce their services in underserved areas, the New York Times reports. According to Phillip Schneider, a vice president at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, roughly 6,500, or 6%, of pharmacist positions at U.S. chain pharmacies are vacant, an increase of nearly 4,000 since February 1998. And a June survey by the American Hospital Association found that 12,600, or 21%, of hospital pharmacist positions are unfilled. Attempting to reduce these vacancy rates, pharmacies have increased their starting salaries, with the average initial wage for hospital pharmacists rising from $56,000 in March 2000 to $60,740 in September of that year, according to HHS. While the number of pharmacists nationwide has increased from roughly 181,000 in 1995 to about 196,000 today, according to HHS figures, the demand for prescription drugs has outstripped this "slight" increase -- 3.15 billion prescriptions were filled in the United States in 2000, up from 2 billion in 1990, Schneider said. Meanwhile, enrollment in pharmacy schools has declined every year since 1994, Will Lang, a spokesperson for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, said.

Medication Error Uncertainty
According to the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, medication errors "cost the health care system" more than $177 billion in 2000, up from $77 billion in 1995, and HHS reports that these errors cause more than 7,000 deaths annually. But it is uncertain how many of these errors are caused by pharmacists, according to Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Catizone said that North Carolina is the only state that requires pharmacists to report medication errors (New York Times, 8/26).