New law will reduce number of prescription errors

Hartford - This year, getting a prescription filled at a pharmacy in Connecticut will become easier and safer. Public Act 09-150, An Act Concerning a Pharmacy Error Database and Pharmacy Commission Meeting Minutes, will ensure that consumers have the right to know which pharmacies have been disciplined for errors in dispensing medication. The law allows the Department of Consumer Protection, the Pharmacy Commission and the Department of Public Health to publicly identify individuals or institutions involved in a proceeding where the Commission has voted to formally discipline a licensed pharmacist or pharmacy for an error in dispensing medication. Public Act 09-22, An Act Concerning the Practice of Pharmacy and Electronic Prescriptions, allows pharmacies to maintain prescriptions electronically and allows physicians to transmit Schedule II drugs - narcotics - to pharmacies electronically once proposed changes in federal regulations are approved. In testimony offered to the General Law Committee in February, Jerry Farrell, Jr., Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Protection, said, "This new law will reduce the number of medication errors caused by illegible handwriting by allowing the expanded use of electronic transmission of prescriptions from physician to pharmacy."