Ensuring Quality in Pharmacy Operations

After completing this chapter, students should be able to 

Justify the use of successful quality practices employed by other industries in pharmacy practice. 

Explain the differences between quality assurance, quality control, and continuous quality improvement. 

List three methods for ensuring quality in pharmacy practice. 

Outline the steps necessary for a successful continuous quality improvement plan. 

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Although pharmacy was not affected by aU of these factors in the same ways, this was the milieu in which both pharmacists and physicians—for better or for worse—had to operate. Since the fundamental role of pharmaceutists (as the more formally trained often referred to themselves at the time) was to ensure the quality of the ingredients and accuracy of the compounded prescriptions, they served primarily as guarantors and implementers of the materia medica developed from the physician s corpus of knowledge about disease, diagnosis, and therapeutics. In short, what physicians thought about these subjects appreciably affected virtually everything pharmacists did. 

Standard operating procedures are often referred to as SOPs and include all the written protocols and procedures in place within a pharmacy. They state the way the pharmacy expects tasks to be carried out to ensure a quality service is provided. They will include, for example, the questions that must be asked of a patient so that their needs can be correctly identified and appropriate action taken. 

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