Page 49 - InsideOut Magazine

At the time, pharmacy was considered a marginal profession that garnered little respect from medical
professionals and staffs.
- William A. Zellmer, History of Hospital Pharmacy
were also responsible for compound- ing patient medications, as well as monitoring narcotics and overseeing drug disposal.
Surprisingly, stock containers of medications were routinely stored
at nurses’ stations, and nurses com- monly filled medication orders and distributed medications to patients without a pharmacist’s review. Con- current records of patient medications were not maintained or consistently shared between pharmacy and medical staffs. Ward clerks often transcribed physician medication orders from patients’ charts incor- rectly, which resulted in many patients receiving the wrong drug
or dosage, or drugs that were admin- istered in the wrong form.
Concerns for patient safety, medica- tion errors and inefficiencies led to the development of unit dose drug distribution in the early 1960s. Phar- macists and professional pharmacy organizations were major drivers behind these policy changes — an
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