Question

Lee, a pharmacist in a hospital, is working in the discharge pharmacy filling medications for patients who are going home. He sees a prescription for ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic, and asks his pharmacy technician, Sean, to fill it quickly, as the patient is waiting and anxious to leave. Sean hurries to the shelves and reaches for the ciprofloxacin; however, he accidently grabs levofloxacin, an antibiotic in the same class that covers most, but not all, of the same types of infections.

This is an example of what type of error?

A. Slip
B. Lapse
C. Violation
D. Mistake

Answer 1

In this pharmacy scenario, where one medication is mistakenly substituted for another, it is termed a slip, which is an unintentional error due to attentional or perceptual mistakes.

Step-by-step explanation:

The scenario described where a pharmacy technician, Sean, accidentally grabs levofloxacin instead of ciprofloxacin is an example of a slip. A slip is a type of error that occurs when someone has the intention to do one thing but then inadvertently does something else. Slips are usually due to attentional or perceptual errors, such as picking the wrong medication from a shelf when distracted or in a hurry, which is what happened with Sean in the pharmacy. Slips can be minimized by having systems in place to catch these errors before they reach the patient, such as double-checking medication names and dosages or having a second person verify the prescription fulfillment.