Pet Medications: A Tail of Caution

Purpose: A case report of pet medications appearing along with the patient’s medications (pet owner) in the external medication history list of the electronic medical record (EMR). Case Presentation: A 67-year-old female presented to the emergency department for altered mental status. A medication h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of pharmacy practice 2022-04, Vol.35 (2), p.317-321
Main Authors: Nguyen, Tammy T., Kirkwood, Craig F., Reilly, Denise, Lee, Danyae, Coggin, Christy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Electronic Health Records
Emergency Service, Hospital
Female
Humans
Medication Errors
Medication Reconciliation
Pharmaceutical Services
Pharmacists
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Summary:Purpose: A case report of pet medications appearing along with the patient’s medications (pet owner) in the external medication history list of the electronic medical record (EMR). Case Presentation: A 67-year-old female presented to the emergency department for altered mental status. A medication history was performed by the pharmacist in an attempt to identify possible etiologies of the patient’s clinical status. An external prescription refill report from the EMR included 2 medications that could not be confirmed by the family as the patient’s: phenobarbital 50 mg twice daily and zonisamide 200 mg every 12 hours. The patient’s pharmacy identified that the prescriptions were pet medications registered under the patient’s name and date of birth for the state’s prescription monitoring program. Conclusion: A lack of standardization between pet identifiers in community pharmacy databases and state Board of Pharmacy regulations for prescription monitoring programs, has led to the association of pet medications with their human owners in the EMR. Patient medication histories should always be verified and validated utilizing patient/patient family interviews and prescription refill histories. Utilization of pharmacists to identify and scrutinize inconsistencies can reduce medication errors that could occur during medication history or reconciliation.
ISSN:0897-1900
1531-1937
DOI:10.1177/0897190020966149