Creation and Implementation of a New Sentinel Surveillance Model in Pharmacy Offices in Southern Europe.

Traditionally, health sentinel networks have focused on the reporting of data by primary care physicians and hospitals, ignoring the role of the community pharmacist as an expert in drugs. The objective of this study was to describe a method for creating a network of sentinel pharmacies in a region of Southern Europe in order to have a pharmaceutical surveillance system that is representative of the territory to be monitored and that can respond to any events or incidents that can be followed up by the community pharmacy. The creation process was carried out in three phases: a first phase of selection through a cluster and population analysis and a final adjustment, a second phase of voluntariness and random selection, and a third phase of training and implementation of the network. A sentinel network of 75 community pharmacies has been established in Catalonia. The network monitors 2.47% of the total population with a homogeneous proportion of urban (42), rural (30), and mountain-area (3) pharmacies based on the particular characteristics of the territory. This model allows increased surveillance in the territory, objectively and representatively detects problems arising from the use of medicines, and establishes improvement strategies of public health.

Detection and Prevention of Medication Errors by the Network of Sentinel Pharmacies in a Southern European Region.

A medication error (ME) is a drug-related problem that has been recognized as a common and serious threat to patient safety. The aim of this study was to detect and analyze ME reports occurring throughout the therapeutic process through the community's pharmacies in order to improve the efficacy and safety of medications and contribute to the prevention of future MEs. This was a three-year descriptive, observational, and prospective study to detect and analyze the different MEs reported by the Catalan sentinel pharmacies network (Catalan SePhaNet). In total, 1394 notifications of MEs were reported (an incidence rate of 737.34 cases/100,000 inhabitants). MEs were detected more frequently in primary care centers. Most of the MEs reported were caused by an incorrect, incomplete, illegible, or verbal medical prescription (41.3%). Of the global notifications detected, 71.9% did not reach the patient (categories A and B). The drugs most frequently implicated in the reported ME cases were beta-lactam antibiotics. In 6.0% of the cases, the ME caused injury to the patient (categories E and F). In 72.0% of the global notifications, a pharmacist's intervention avoided the ME. The importance of a community pharmacy and the role of a pharmacist were demonstrated in aspects related to patient and drug safety.