BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- The Bay Village pharmacist responsible for the death of two-year-old Emily Jerry is telling other pharmacists not to be like him.
Eric Cropp spoke exclusively with WKYC Channel 3 News Investigator Tom Meyer regarding prescription drug errors. He was joined by Christopher Jerry, Emily's father, who runs the Emily Jerry Foundation that is committed to saving lives by reducing preventable medical errors.
Jerry has forgiven Cropp, the supervising pharmacist in 2006 who approved a deadly chemotherapy drug prepared by a pharmacy technician. The drug error killed Emily on the day she was scheduled to go home from the hospital.
Instead, her body was delivered to the county morgue.
"Most of these errors are systems-related," argued Jerry. Cropp agrees. "The systems are bad, really bad."
Both men spoke about performance metrics, a system used to evaluate a pharmacist based on the speed and volumes of filling prescriptions.
Jerry say he confronted one pharmacy chain which promised prescriptions in minutes.
"I said, 'are you guys serving up hot dogs and hamburgers here. I mean who needs prescriptions in 15 minutes,'" he said.
A survey of about 700 pharmacists found more than 83 percent believed performance metrics contributed to drug-dispensing mistakes.
"A lot of pharmacists are judged on how many prescriptions they fill in an hour," said Cropp.
The survey was done by ISMP, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices.
"Without a doubt, the number one error we get reported is people going home and taking a medication that was really meant for another patient," said ISMP President Mike Cohen.
Channel 3 News found that the Ohio Pharmacy Board investigated about 500 cases involving drug mistakes from 2012-2014. Many caused harm to the patients.
"I think it's a big problem, a very big problem," said Cropp.
"It's really the system that sets them up for error," said Cohen.
In 2013 and 2014, the board fined 42 pharmacists, suspended the licenses of 20 and revoked the licenses of 6 others.
The Food and Drug Administration reports that drug errors kill at least one person a day and injure more than a million people a year. But, only two percent of all prescriptions are filled incorrectly. Still, that's an estimated 50 million mistakes a year.
"There's going to continue to be mistakes, unfortunately, and I pray it doesn't become another Emily," said Cropp.
For more information on drug mistakes, visit the Emily Jerry Foundation website: EmilyJerryFoundation.org
