Fertility: A Novel Read Free Page B

you.”
    “I’m Sarah Abadhi,” she said, shaking hands with the head pharmacist. Sarah noticed the Pharm.D. following Joanne Marsh’s name on her ID tag, indicating her doctorate in pharmacology.
    “Please, let me know how I can be of help in your investigation. This is the type of error I’ve spent my career trying to prevent. Believe me when I say I’m eager to know how this mistake happened.”
    Sarah was taken by her frankness and her straightforward demeanor. “I thank you in advance for your cooperation. It’s clear that it’s in everyone’s interest to keep errors like the one that occurred yesterday to a minimum. You could help me by demonstrating how a doctor’s order is processed by the pharmacy. I’d like to familiarize myself with the system.”
    “I’d be happy to. We put our Bar Code Medication System — BCMA —– into operation just last week. We have orders constantly arriving on our system. Let me take you through the entire process from arrival of the order to departure through the pneumatic tubes.”
    Marsh was as efficient as she was confident when explaining the system. She used the first order of the incoming computerized requests as an example. “Let’s see. A doctor on Four North has requested Effexor XR, 150 mg, for an eighty-nine-year-old female patient. I’ll bring up the patient’s profile to see what other medications she’s taking. As you can see on the screen, there are no possible drug interactions, so we can fill the script without calling the floor to speak with the patient’s nurse.”
    Then Marsh walked Sarah over to unit five of the large array of freestanding, open shelves and, using a stepstool, brought down from the highest shelf the large, brown, bubble-sealed Effexor capsules. Returning to the computer terminal, she scanned the bar code on the Effexor package and printed out a label with the patient’s name and ID number, the prescribing doctor’s name and ID number, the dosage and the date. Once the label was affixed to the cardstock portion of the Effexor packaging, the head pharmacist indicated on the screen that the order was filled. Before five minutes had elapsed, the order was put into a clear plastic capsule that would wend its way through the pneumatic tubes to Four North and the eighty-nine-year-old woman awaiting her antidepressant medication.
    “That seems to be an efficient system. What if you had scanned in the wrong drug or the wrong dose?” Sarah asked.
    “So glad you asked. Let me demonstrate how the system is set up to deal with those types of errors.”
    The head pharmacist went through the same steps with the next incoming script, Furosemide, 20 mg, for an eighty-two-year-old male on Seven West. She intentionally retrieved Furosemide, 40 mg, from the bottom of unit six of the open shelving. When she scanned the bar code for the incorrect dosage, the computer gave an error message in a large, red font.
    “So you see, the computer will not print out a label for an incorrect dosage. It’s as close to foolproof as a system can be,” Marsh said, quietly triumphant and delighted with the system she had personally championed with the hospital brass.
    “I see,” Sarah said, reserving judgment. She’d been working on malpractice cases long enough to know that first appearances rarely told the whole story. Without a systematic investigation into what had happened fourteen hours earlier, Sarah would not be so quick to absolve the pharmacy of responsibility. “Thank you for showing me how your system works. It will help me as I conduct my interviews today.”
    “I’m glad I can be of help in the investigation. Don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions.”
    Sarah thanked Marsh again and walked quickly out the staff door to the corridor. She trotted down the hallway and skipped the elevator in favor of the stairs, hoping to have a few minutes to herself before her first interview.

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Sarah could feel the