A few key prevention reminders for pharmacy teams.
Regulated members may have noticed a surge of forgery reports in their inboxes lately—there has been a significant influx of forgery attempts reported in the Edmonton area over the last month.
Below are a few helpful reminders for pharmacy teams to identify and prevent potential forgeries.
- Verify the prescriber’s contact information. Before you reach out to the prescriber to verify the prescription, look up their contact information online to ensure the phone and fax numbers listed on the prescription are correct.
- Complete an assessment. Properly assess the prescribed drug and review the patient’s Netcare profile as part of your assessment of appropriateness.
- Make sure that the patient’s history and information in Netcare aligns with what is presented on the prescription.
- Do a double check. You can search for forgery attempts by prescriber or by drug name/category in ACP’s Forgeries database.
- Keep records up to date. Once you become aware of a forgery attempt, apply notes to the prescriber’s profile on your pharmacy’s software system to alert pharmacy team members.
- Report any attempted or successful forgeries. When forgery attempts are identified, it is important to report these incidents to the relevant authorities, including
- ACP,
- police services,
- TPP Alberta (for TPP medications), and
- Health Canada (in cases where a forged prescription for a controlled substance has been filled and drugs have been dispensed).
Meeting your obligations to ensure the authenticity, completeness, and currency of prescriptions prior to dispensing helps to prevent the diversion of drugs. Thank you to pharmacy teams who have reported attempted or successful forgeries—your diligence has helped maintain the integrity of the drug system.
