the drugs do work

摘要

With the increasing availability of drugs with unwanted side effects, the spread of new diseases, the development of microbial and parasite resistance to established drugs and pharmacy malpractice, QA in the pharmaceutical world has got its work cut out. Most pharmaceutical professionals have to perform their duties with limited or inadequate resources, despite the high expectations of customers. A recent research study carried out to investigate the quality of pharmaceutical services in developing countries, taking Sri Lanka as a representative sample, revealed that adopting quality management principles to suit the operating environment - using locally available facilities - could make significant improvements in pharmaceutical services. It has been estimated that approximately 100,000 Americans a year die due to medical errors. Further studies suggest that 94 per cent of preventable deaths from medical errors were due to failures in management rather than of knowledge. In 1995, an American study estimated that the cost of solving all drug related problems in the US was approximately 76 bnUS dollars.