Pharmacy Survey on Patient Safety Culture

Overall response results for the participating pilot study pharmacies are summarized in Table 2. 

Table 2. Overall and Average Response Statistics for 55 Pharmacies

Pharmacy characteristics were obtained from a designated point of contact in each pharmacy or by headquarters staff for a pharmacy chain. Table 3 shows the distribution of pharmacies by pharmacy type.

Approximately two-thirds of pharmacies (68 percent) were considered either a supermarket pharmacy or a mass merchant/discount retailer pharmacy that carries a wide variety of merchandise and has a pharmacy within the store.

Note: In tables in this document, column percent totals may not add to exactly 100 percent because of rounding. 

Table 3. Distribution of Pharmacies by Type of Store

The 55 pilot study pharmacies came from 25 States in the United States. However, the pharmacies that voluntarily participated in these data collection efforts are not statistically representative of all pharmacies in the United States. To provide a basic comparison of the number of pilot pharmacies with estimates of the population of pharmacies in the United States, we provide comparative numbers based on data from the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) 2011-2012 Chain Pharmacy Industry Profile.

The distribution of pharmacies by type is presented in Table 4. The pilot study pharmacies represent less than 0.001 percent of the total number of U.S. pharmacies. In addition, mass merchant and supermarket pharmacies are overrepresented in the pilot study. 

Table 4. Distribution of Pharmacies by Type of Store for U.S. Pharmacies and Pilot Study Pharmacies

^a Source of data for U.S. pharmacies: National Association of Chain Drug Stores. NACDS 2011-2012 Chain Pharmacy Industry Profile. 2011. Statistics for integrated health system pharmacies that are open to the public are combined with statistics for chain drugstores in the NACDS results.

Seventy-five percent of the pharmacies belonged to an organization with 50 or more stores (Table 5). The largest proportions of pharmacies were from the East North Central (42 percent) and the South Atlantic regions (20 percent), as shown in Table 6. Fifty-six percent of pharmacies dispensed 1,500 or fewer prescriptions per week (Table 7). 

Table 5. Distribution of Pharmacies by Number of Locations/Stores

Table 6. Distribution of Pharmacies by Region

States and territories are categorized into regions as follows: Mid-Atlantic: NJ, NY, PA; New England: CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT; South Atlantic: DC, DE, FL, GA, MD, NC, SC, VA, WV, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands; East North Central: IL, IN, MI, OH, WI; East South Central: AL, KY, MS, TN; West Central: AR, IA, KS, LA, MN, MO, ND, NE, OK, SD, TX; Mountain: AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY; Pacific: AK, CA, HI, OR, WA, American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands. 

Table 7. Distribution of Pharmacies by Average Number of Prescriptions Dispensed per Week

Almost all pharmacies (91 percent) were open on average 9-12 hours per weekday, with 78 percent of pharmacies open 7 days a week (Tables 8 and 9). One-third of pharmacies (33 percent) had a drive-through window, and few pharmacies (18 percent) had a centrally located fulfillment center (central fill) for dispensing medications (Tables 10 and 11). Most staff did not belong to a union (98 percent), as shown in Table 12. 

Table 8. Distribution of Pharmacies by Hours per Weekday Pharmacy Is Open

Table 9. Distribution of Pharmacies by Days per Week Pharmacy Is Open

Table 10. Distribution of Pharmacies by Whether There Is a Drive-Through Window

Table 11. Distribution of Pharmacies by Whether There Is a Central Fill for Dispensing Medications

Table 12. Distribution of Pharmacies by Staff Who Belong to a Union

Table 13 presents data on the use of automated electronic technologies in the pharmacies. All of the pilot study pharmacies (100 percent) had computer alerts for drug interactions, while only 11 percent had a robotic filling system. 

Table 13. Distribution of Pharmacies by Use of Selected Automated (Electronic) Technologies

Many of the pharmacies offered medication management services. Table 14 shows that vaccination or other immunization administration was the medication management service most fully implemented across pharmacies (80 percent); anticoagulation management (e.g., in-pharmacy finger sticks and International Normalized Ratio testing, patient education, dose adjustments) was the least (2 percent). 

Table 14. Distribution of Pharmacies by Use of Selected Clinical/Medication Therapy Management Services

Most pharmacies (76 percent) compounded medications on site (Table 15). Of those compounding pharmacies, 93 percent performed only simple compounding (Table 16). 

Table 15. Distribution of Pharmacies by Whether They Compound Medications on Site

Table 16. Distribution of Pharmacies That Compound Medications on Site by Type of Compounding

As shown in Table 17, nearly all pharmacies (98 percent) had a system for documenting errors, and 38 percent had both a paper and electronic system. 

Table 17. Distribution of Pharmacies by Whether There Is a System for Documenting Errors Within the Pharmacy

More than half of the pharmacies (53 percent) do not report errors to an external reporting program, as shown in Table 18. 

Table 18. Pharmacies by Reporting of Errors to Selected External Reporting Programs

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