CPhT Medication Safety 3

Question 1

Which system-level safety intervention physically prevents a wrong drug or dose from being selected?

Accepted Answer

Forcing function

Answer

A forcing function creates a physical or system barrier that makes it impossible to proceed with an incorrect action (e.g., unique connectors for epidural vs. IV tubing).

Question 2

A technician accidentally fills a prescription with the 10 mg tablet instead of the 100 mg tablet. At what point in the dispensing process should this error ideally be caught?

Accepted Answer

During pharmacist final verification

Answer

The pharmacist's final verification is the last safety checkpoint before dispensing, designed to catch errors like incorrect strength selection.

Question 3

Which metric does ISMP use to categorize the severity of a medication error?

Accepted Answer

NCC MERP index categories A–I

Answer

ISMP uses the NCC MERP Index for Categorizing Medication Errors, which ranges from Category A (no error) through Category I (death).

Question 4

Why should leading zeros always be used but trailing zeros never used on medication labels?

Accepted Answer

To prevent 10-fold dosing errors

Answer

A trailing zero (e.g., 1.0 mg misread as 10 mg) and absence of a leading zero (e.g., .5 mg misread as 5 mg) can both cause 10-fold dosing errors.

Question 5

What is the primary purpose of a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) in pharmacy?

Accepted Answer

Proactively identify where a process could fail before errors happen

Answer

FMEA is a prospective risk analysis tool that identifies potential failure points in a process before errors occur.

(CPhT) Certified Pharmacy Technician Practice Test

(CPhT) Certified Pharmacy Technician Practice Test

CPhT Medication Safety 3