Eric Cropp, RPh, shares his personal story with a medication error that forever changed his life, how he became a patient safety advocate, and ways we can make medication administration safer for patients and caregivers.
Check out previous episodes that share more of this important journey below:
Episode 46: How to Enhance Medication Safety for Patients and Caregivers
Episode 48: How to Prevent Medication Errors with Chris Jerry of the Emily Jerry Foundation
Also, Eric invites caregivers to reach out to him if he can be a resource at (440) 567-9419 or sabsdaddie11192006@gmail.com.
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Transcript: How to Support Caregivers and Create a Safe Environment for Medication Administration
Amanda Brummitt: We infuse podcast episode number 50, welcome to the WeInfuse podcast. My name is Amanda and every episode we give you a seat at the table as we talk to infusion center owners, operators, and experts, so that you can get the insight you need to run a thriving practice. In this episode, we talk with Eric Cropp. If Eric’s name sounds familiar, it is probably because it is. We’ve talked about the Emily Jerry story in previous episodes with Chuck DiTrapano and Chris Jerry. In today’s episode, Eric shares his personal story with a medication error that forever changed his life, how he became a patient safety advocate, and ways we can make medication administration safer for patients and caregivers. As I said, I’m here today with Eric Cropp. And many of you have heard about Eric, both from Chris Jerry and from Chuck DiTrapano. And thank you so much for being here today. Eric, I would love if you would start with telling us all, how did you get into healthcare? How did you become a pharmacist in the post.
Eric Cropp: Thank you for allowing me to be here, to tell my story and get to know me better. I’ve always wanted to be a pharmacist since ninth grade in high school. We had a program called explorers. You could go and shadow a different career in the medical field. And I was able to shadow a pharmacist and see what they did in the hospital setting. And I thought, wow, that’s really cool. And this was the time when we really didn’t have all the computers in every, so you were still typing labels on typewriters and you made a lot of things from scratch. And so it was really fascinating to me and really made me want to become a pharmacist as. I was walking on the railroad tracks with some friends and I were just throwing rocks and stuff. And I stepped on a wasp nest and I had a bad reaction to, they stung me all on my legs. So they dragged me over to the pharmacy that was in town and the pharmacist was smart enough to go and get an Epipen at the time and give it to me. So I w and gave me some Benadryl and I was able to be okay until the rescue squad came, but it, I just saw that was incredible. The pharmacist took the action of taking care of me and helping me out because we were a small town. So the nearest hospital was quite a ways away. So he reacted well. And what was interesting as my first year out of pharmacy school, I was able to. Do the same deed to another patient by a lady was coming in from outside and she got stung and she, her whole face was blowing up and getting red and everything. And I was able to give her an EpiPen and help calm her down and, call the ambulance and everything. So I was like, wow, that is such a cool thing that I was able to repay what had happened to me to another person. So that definitely made me even more wanting to get involved and get more into the pharmacy career. So I worked retail for quite a few years, and then I wanted to go back and get my farm days. So I said, I probably would do better if I worked in a hospital because it had more people to talk to if I had questions because a lot of the coursework was do it at home online. So I was an opportunity to came about. I had done some other hospital work. a couple of times, as a second job. So I had some experience in the hospital, but I wanted to get more. So when I got opportunity to come and work at the university hospital, I jumped at the opportunity and they said, we’re really shorthanded at impedes. And I thought, that I would love kids. And they said they had needed somebody who knew about chemotherapy. And that was one of the things I studied as an extra residency after I got done with school. So I thought, wow, I can learn more about how to help kids. And, so that made it a great learning experience. So I got a lot of trainings during that year, and unfortunately on a cold day in February and pave on, we’re always famous for having bad snow storms and everybody getting the flu all at the same time. And it was a weekend. And. I remember we had celebrated Emily’s birthday on Friday cause she was in house and her father had wanted to get her, her last treatment. Cause she was actually cured from her disease. So we all attended the party. We saw her riding around on our big wheel, up and down the hallways and everything. We all took turns going and take it cake and wish her happy birthday. So I knew Emily and I always thought it was interesting that she had a boy and a girl’s name being Emily, Jerry. And so her name always stuck to me size and I don’t want to see what this little girl looks like. And when we would do rounds, I got to meet her and she just had such a wonderful personality. You just felt the energy that she, didn’t act like she was sick. It was the most intense she handled all the treatments so well. So on the day that this error occurred, I had called in, I had worked two double shifts. the Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So I was pretty tired and they had asked me to come in because we were shorthanded. So right. There was a red flag that I shouldn’t have come in cause I was really tired. And then when I saw that the whole system had been down for 10 hours, I really should have got on the phone and started calling other people to try to come in. Cause it was just two pharmacists at our end of it. And the other pharmacist I was working with, he was a little bit nervous and new at the, so he wasn’t handling and me, unfortunately, being a type a personality, I was like, I’m going to get this taken care of and. By the time we got the labels going, we had been answering phones all morning, trying to get all the things that people needed. And we had not been able to print out any kind of fill lists. So we didn’t know what IVs needed made. We didn’t have labels printed out for the IVs. We didn’t have a list for the drawers where the nurse could get the meds from their med drawers. It was chaotic and a mess. The one that labels off throughout we had all the labels that have, should have been sent from the night, the morning and the Well’s afternoon open. So we had to sort it out, try to get some of the morning doses out, fix those up. we were like the smallest part of the hospital, very small pharmacy and things started to build up very fast and we had probably a normal picnic table type size table that you did all the checking. And we would put everything in bins. we ran out of bins and they were starting to pile everything on top of each other, which was another red flag. And, I, should’ve told everybody to stop. Let’s get this stuff checked or attend the next thing Phillips, some more things to check and another dangerous thing as I had rechecked filling, making IVs in one hood and two in another hoods. So there was again, opportunity of grabbing someone else’s stuff, mixing things up another red flag. So there was all these little factors that I was catching things that were wrong, but it was like, I was feeling really overwhelmed at that time when this was occurring and, around w we were still playing catch up around 11, 11 30 or so the nurse from the floor called and said, can we make sure Emily’s, chemotherapy is of focused. We’re going to send her home after a treatment. So knowing that they were going to be going off on a vacation and, we all. The situation, it wasn’t really needed right away. I didn’t know if they weren’t going to give the dose until four o’clock. The nurse was saying it needed to be done by 12. So we, we did everything, but we still had everything else piled up that day. And when a technician mixed up the, I went and pulled out the drugs and double-checked everything. She went and started making the base solution. And we had a very bad policy at the time where we made, cause kids can only take a small volume of fluid at a time. We would make our own D5, normal saline and we’d make our own like dextrose and water sometimes. And sometimes we had to make it from bigger bags because you’d run out of the little stuff beginning a long weekend and, somehow getting it restocked until Monday. So a lot of times we take a large 250 or even a 500 bag and put it into a smaller, you either make it into a syringe. With the volume needed or we put it in a bag volume. So that wasn’t uncommon in the, in our PA our way of doing things, especially on a weekend. So when she made the first chemo drug for Emily, it was only for, five CC. So she had, she made her own D five and a half, and then we added two CCS of drugs to the syringe. And I think when she made the next line, she thought in her brain, when she saw that it had to be of normal saline in it, she thought, oh, I’ll just pull it out of the vials. And she pulled out 148 MLS from pre vials because it was so chaotic and she already used some of the normal saline in the first one, she threw only one vial in there. So I assumed that vile meant for the first bag. And then she had syringes drawn out for the 148 MLS for the, other, That she was getting, and I assumed she just took it from a bag that was sitting on the counter because we would, again made our own solution a lot of time. So there was a red flag I asked, this is normal sailing in her, not realizing she did not understand the difference between 0.9% and the concentrated dosage as well. So we went ahead, we added the chemo drugs to them, and then we were set up, they sat for a while and try to catch up the rest of the day, getting things out. And then unfortunately that afternoon, when they gave the second chemo right away, there was something wrong. Emily was crying. She was saying she, her head hurt. She was in a lot of pain. And unfortunately, during the confusion that kept the Ivy going instead of stopping it and. By the time I called the technician to share the already gone home, asked what she had done. And when she finally explained me to me that she took it out of the vials, I knew right away what was wrong. So being, I was the only one on duty. I was trying to make sure you were trying to flush out as much as the sodium out of her body. I didn’t know. They didn’t stop Ivy right away. So she had gotten a large dose being that she was getting all this sodium in their bodies. She was requesting liquids. So her family was giving her soda pop, which also had sodium in it. So we were adding to the issue. And so it, unfortunately by the time we got supportive care for her, she already drifted off into a coma and. I didn’t get any communication. They really didn’t want me to come to the Piccu where she was in and I really wanted to go and help in whatever way I could, but I had to get through the rest of the shift, fill all the cards in, check everything and get everything done for their hospital. In the meantime, I was trying to call my supervisor and anybody else to come. And because I really needed someone to take over. Cause I was pretty devastated at the time. By the time my shift was over, I felt pretty horrible. I don’t know. I don’t even remember driving home that night. the next day I came in and they basically told me what had happened. I didn’t know all the full details and basically decided that they were going to dismiss me at the time, as well as technician. She had already been dismissed for staying in the morning. I was pretty much, wow. I didn’t know what to do. I was like, first they tested me for drugs and all that. There’s a bigger, like, why did you catch all this nicest? Did you realize what kind of day I was having that day and everything and how chaotic and I was trying to get somebody to come in. And this is where it’s really important to have some kind of, group set up when you worked at a hospital or even in a retail setting somebody for that pharmacist to talk to call up on if some error occurs, because you really need that person to move out of that area, where they made them stay and have someone step in, give the supportive care to the patient and get them out so that they can calm down, get their emotions in order. Maybe it’s home, so that they can. A little bit better because I was under so much pressure that I was like, like a time capsule, about to explode. I was feeling horrible what had happened. So when they dismissed me, they did do an investigation. And I don’t know if you talked about that with Chris before, but they did say it was a system air as well as the fact that there wasn’t sufficient, education for that technician. So I thought I was pretty much not. I, knew I was involved in the state, but I was pretty much, it was understand that I tried to ask the right questions, but during the circumstances, I didn’t ask enough to get out. So after that, I didn’t know what to do. Cause I was pretty much mess. My head was not on. And I even thought of doing harm to myself. And during my research, after this happened, I found out that we, as a profession, pharmacists are one of four groups that have the highest suicide levels, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and dentists, for some reason, I still thought that was interesting too, but we have a really high suicide rate because there’s, we’ve been taught and learned that you didn’t talk about an error. You don’t use it as a learning experience. Don’t use it to teach other people. and it’s something that a lot of people, as I’ve been lecturing around have been telling me, I had this air when I first came out of school, I’ve been working 30 years and I still. Always bothered me and I flipped and I’ve had no one to talk about it with, and you may need finally want to talk about it. And it was just like, it’s amazing when I give a lecture, how many people open up and say, I feel a relief because I’ve never had nobody to tell that this happened. And how does it happen to other people? I know. And, we’ve, don’t, there’s just not a really great support system for how many who eating a nurse doctor pharmacist has made an error, what to do, And unfortunately I got investigated by the state board of pharmacy. they were raring to try to get they’re trying to find any way to get me, to get my license taken away. And when I w I appeared for the board pharmacy, unfortunately, the, I was thrown on the bus by the hospital and they say said a lot of stuff. Kind of said that I was responsible, even though it was a multitude of problems. So when I came in, they were all holding pictures of Emily. And so the whole court, that whole session with the board, I had to sit and look at Emily and I’m already feeling horrible enough, but they all were like shining them at me. And by then I finally got a little bit of help, but it was hard because when I went to try and get any kind of counseling, they first sent me to a group that dealt with people who were humane mistake for stuff, because they were under the influence of alcohol or doing drugs. And they sent me to that group and I’m like, I’m not a drug addict, not, I don’t have these. It’s just, I just was fortunately made a mistake of not catching something. So finally, I just finally found somebody who could console me and she knew. How to deal with somebody who had made an heir. She dealt with other doctors and pharmacists and nurses. So it finally with him. But unfortunately they put me on so many medications that I had no emotion. So when I went to the board, I just looked like I didn’t care my way of dealing things as I put on my thumbs. And I remember Chris saying, you have no, you don’t have no, you don’t care. I look at you just sitting there twiddling your thumbs. you’re not even upset. You’re not even showing any emotion. And unfortunately, when you, they put you on all these meds, you don’t. And I looked like I really looked very guilty. I was very, and by the time it was my turn to defend myself. After all these different people test them, they didn’t allow my people to testify. They didn’t allow other pharmacists who had worked in the setting that I worked, who said it was a dangerous situation talk and I was pretty much. I at one person that was allowed to say anything. And then they were like, we’re done for the day and we’ll, we’re gonna make a decision and we’ll get back to you. then within a half hour, they decided to take my license away. And unfortunately, the lawyer that I hired did not tell me, I could have, been able to challenge this and try to reinstate my license. So by the time I found out it was already six months, I didn’t challenge it anymore. but then, but during that six months I already had, now I was what, while I was home, I was being harassed now. Cause it was an article in the plane jail or saying what I was that I was a killer and all this horrible things. The media was just beating me up. And then I was contacted by district attorney that now they were going to do civil charges against me. And what they usually do when they do these cases. And I see that with the nerves that’s being going on, who went on trial down in Tennessee, is they keep piling on all these different charges, trying to get one charge to stick. And we kept fighting. My, my lawyers were really good at kid challenging, and we would, unfortunately they found an old law from 18 hundreds that anything that’s misbranded and the fact that the solution that was inside the bag was not what was saying it, that it said on the label, it was considered misbranding and it was considered a felony. So my lawyers tried to say, it’s so hard when you’re putting a clear solution in. So another clear solution, we’re taking faith and the technicians that they’re putting the right thing, And we’re we take faith that they understand how to do the calculations and they know what understand what the drugs are used for. And I really learned that back in that time that they don’t really, they didn’t know what really, a lot of them were trained on the job. my technician, she only had a GED and was trained for six weeks on the job. So that’s why she didn’t understand. She knew the basic algebra that you needed to figure out that the and stuff like that to add to the, to the bags and stuff. But she, that was her basic knowledge. And, after what happened to me and when I was put into jail, Chris and his wife, Kelly, they worked hard when they found out how little education was out there for the technicians. They worked on developing Emily’s law in Ohio and. They at the time wanted to make sure a technician had at least two years of education. They had to take a test to show the conference day. they were supposed to have so many hours on the job, as an intern being trained in an actual Ivy room, the ratio of technicians, the pharmacist was supposed to be no more than three to one. there was a bunch of things. It got watered down. When we finally got past, they did, they basically got where all technicians in Ohio were on were to be certified, but there was no required education. So they still don’t need to go to school. So anybody could just read the book and then take the test. they still don’t need any, college education or anything like that. They just, as long as they have a GED, so that’s. I know, when Chris and Kelly worked on us, it was very watered down. It was, I think they worked on the ratio is still like 501 for pharmacists to technician, which is really hard to see how you can see everything that they do. it was very, I, it started a process of waking up the country that we needed to change, especially both pharmacy and my technicians. they definitely see that there was a huge ratio of technicians to one pharmacist. I was overseeing six technicians and one pharmacist. that was a very big ratio and it was just too many opportunities to miss something. I know when, unfortunately when I got put into jail, There was still nothing in place. Like how to handle a pharmacy, a pharmacist, or nurse with doctor, what to do when they do make a mistake and a big thing during what happened is they really wanted to increase the amount of reporting of errors. And everybody was scared to report their errors because, okay, we just saw Mr. Crop get sent to jail. And we are hearing other cases where, a nurse was when, I was fortunate enough to meet a nurse and Chuck Dunn, who came to me when I was in jail. And I had not been able to, I never really talked to anybody who had gone through what I went to and the nurse, her name first name was Julie. And she had accidentally, when she went in the Pyxis machine, she was able to override it. And this is still a big issue, which I want to talk about. There’s still that there’s the ability to override the Pyxis machine and grab something that it sounds like it looks like a machine and give it out wrong. And I, we see this over and over, especially in nursing because one they’re by themselves a lot or in their, an emergency situation they’re rushing. and nobody’s doing a double check on them, when they’re giving the medication and this had this same thing happened to her, she ended up on the mother. She was, she worked in labor and delivery and she ended up giving a drug that paralyzed the mother. And she ended up that she stopped breathing and she passed away and she has to live with that the rest of her life. And it was, again, it was a simple override of the machine, the medications that they were, they sounded the light looked like, and she grabbed. And she had to spend these medicines before in the past. But again, it was just one of those. You, do so much in so many hours, so you get your eyes, get tired, your mind gets tired. And she said she had worked like myself. She had worked a long day. Was it like 10 hour shifts, 12 hour shifts. So again, we really need to be making sure that the people who are on the job are getting their breaks, getting their lunches, getting time. If it gets busy, we need to be able to say, Hey, we need to stop more orders until we play catch up or take a little five minute breather so that everybody is clear again. And this is something that both when I love lectured with Chris and I’ve lectured on my own, I’ve seen hospital after hospital. Tell me, and. The one that really stood out to me, it was when I went and give a speech to the military out in San Diego, they have ability to hit a button and it just freezes everything. Nurses can add anything into the computer doctors can’t it just has to be put in a hold so that it gives time for pharmacy to catch up. Because if you’re just constantly bombarded with huge loads, you’re just overwhelmed. And then you can’t, it just becomes like an assembly line production, and you’re not caring what you’re doing, because you’re just trying so hard to get this done. So they have these opportunities where you can stop everything catch up, make they’ll make sure that if this emergency does get to the patient, but most of the time it was something emergency, they get it right away out of the Pyxis machine or something. So it was really not something pharmacy has to rush anyway. I found one wonderful thing when I’ve been lecturing over and over is everybody’s proud of one thing or two things or several things that they’ve done in their hospital. That’s making things change and make things safer. And I love this because I can, I have a general, a huge list of, and each one of them is so excited. They brag about it and I can, and because I’m talking to multiple groups in larger numbers, I give those ideas out to other people and say, Hey, this isn’t an inexpensive way that it’s going to make it safer. They’ve tried this in their hospital and they have a maple to reduce the number of errors from say 21% to 7%. So you’re seeing actual results that made me feel really excited that there, we are trying to make changes and it doesn’t always have to cost millions of dollars to do this. It’s slowing down educated. Sharing from department. I met down in Texas. this hospital called Providence. They sit down every day for about 45 minutes. And every person from every department sends one to two people and they talk about any issues that involve they’re involved with and they see what other departments can do to help them, or they can help the other departments. They can see if there’s drug shortages and word might be located on it. So they have whiteboard that goes around the whole room and they’re able to share from, oh, we have this difficult patient. And we know that this works. If so, if they’re sent to radiology or extensive physical therapy, this is what you should do to deal with that patient. Or, we keep having the same medication being grabbed wrong. We want to know. Let you guys off flag does put a sign up, say, this is being grabbed wrong, or this is being mixed up or so they’re nipping about, instead of having this happen shift after shift, they’re nipping it in the bud every day and they’ve noticed. The amount of errors you use close to zero because they’re talking about it there, Yeah. They’re utilizing a lot of technology, but they’re also utilizing the simplest things, talking to each other that say, it’s your fault and blaming of department, they’re saying, how can I help this department? And I just thought that was the most amazing thing. And I saw it and then saw how it was making a difference, because I talked to, I was lucky enough to talk to three different shifts. I talked to night shift, day shift and evening shift. So they all were sharing me what worked at that has bone. And I was like, got to sit in a meeting and I was blown away. And I said, this has gotta be shared with other places that you need to sit down and, try to do this, even if it’s once a week, if they can’t do it, but do it as often as possible. And, have these alerts, if the ed keeps having this problem. They override the scene and they’re picking the wrong med. Let the ICU no, it’s because they’re using probably the same drugs or another department share that knowledge so that we can stop it from occurring. And so I know I’ve gone on a long tangent, but it,
Amanda Brummitt: no, it’s a good tangent.
Eric Cropp: I really also, during the time that this happened, Dennis Quaid had two twins were born to him and there was a big universal statewide, even in the other countries where the wrong heparin was, you gave into the babies over and it needed him to step up. And that takes blame to the people in the hospital, but to see how he and the people that were in the hospital to change, if it was changing the labeling, having everybody talk about it. But that was like one of the big motivators, I think at the time around when I was put into jail, him speaking out and the Jerry’s working on trying to get proper training for the technicians. And it was just amazing. it was like the, new birth patient safety, safety for caregivers. It started where we were talking about it. And we were trying to strip away that stigma of, oh, you made a mistake. How stupid of you, why did you do that? What were you thinking? And these are things you don’t want to say to that person. You need to say, oh, I feel bad that happened. Let’s see what we can do to fix this. So it doesn’t happen to somebody else. That’s the interest share. And it could be an educational thing that we can pass that to students. We can pass on to doctors, nurses, wherever. And that was another thing when I was doing tops, lot of people in the different institutions were starting to do that, where they’re writing up these case studies and sharing them and people would, after they read it, they go, oh, this occurred in this department or this person. I need to be more careful. I use a stop. Think about it, watch what I’m doing and not in, and be careful. And again, that was starting to make people slow down, stop getting that mentality of we’re in a production line. We’ve got to get everything done and get it up. And, and realize these are people that could be your parents or a family members, your friends. We, we had to take the, make sure that these people are the most important people during your shift, I, always thought of everybody is that’s my would be my mom and dad, whatever. And I really thought that with a good attitude to have that, we have to stop blame and start learning and stop hiding from the system, It’s always hard to train people that are older, but you would be amazed at once you start giving him examples of this occurs. So they break down those walls, those barriers to you. You’ve got, it’s still always going to have that one person. I’ve never made an error, but you down the line, we’re all human it’s going to happen. They made errors when they were in school, they made it, they made an error when they were working for 36 hours shifts. They, it might be in something simple and it was either caught or it didn’t hurt anybody, but then something happened. So I think this whole movement that Chris and I, and many others that, and not all the institutions are doing. It’s the only way we can make things work in the future. We have to reduce the number of errors. When we first were talking, we were, we researched and we found that it was over 200,000 medical errors each year. And half of them were pharmacy. Half of one work is like surgery in the medical setting. So that was scary. And when Chris does a lecture, he’ll show several planes lined up and he just say, this is how many plane, the people that died from medical air in a time, in a certain time periods. And that I hadn’t seen that for a while because we hadn’t lectured in awhile. And we did one together and that blew me away because I’m like, wow. When you put it in a sense of all these people died on a plane, it made that 2000 and more people, 200,000 people sound. That’s a lot of people we’re losing, it’s, a horrible situation. We’ve got to do something to stop that. So being, I don’t have a license anymore. I’m not a pharmacist. And I said, what can I do with my life after I got, I had that unfortunate time in jail. w a funny story, I’ll tell you when I was at jail the first or second day I was in there, I’m like looking at phases. I’m going, oh my God, I know this person. Oh my God. I know this was, these are all the people I used to turn away for narcotics. And I’m going, they kept looking at me like, you look so familiar. And I’m like, oh, I just have a familiar face. But knowing that all these people, I hit turned away because they were, lot of them are in jail because they were addicted to drugs or selling drugs. And I’m like, what awful situation. So I had, I, it just, it blew me away to, So pretty much by the time, one of the things that made my job when I was in jail is everybody knew my story. I don’t, when I was in jail, I didn’t know the other people what they were in for, but because I was on the front page of the, our plain dealer newspaper, they had hosted it right in the, I was in like a clad, which was like there 28 people in one room and they was posted right there. So everybody knew what I’d done. So that’s a set me up for people thinking I had money to come after me. They thought, I have to get ahold of stuff get, so it made my another obstacle to deal with when I was in, in jail, cause I’m trying to, do my time and that getting in trouble and just get through this and. I was thinking of ways of what I could do when I got out there, but I’m also thinking, looking over my shoulder as they gonna come after me do something. Cause you know, they realizing I was at one, it said no to getting their drugs and stuff.
Amanda Brummitt: So it was an
Eric Cropp: interesting time.
Amanda Brummitt: So I’m curious, what was the turning point for you? we talked about your worst day and all the horrific stuff that followed and we jumped a little bit to some of the cool things you’ve done since then, which I want to get more into, but can you share, like at what point did you decide, okay, I’m going to commit the rest of my life to being a patient safety advocate because some of the stuff you’ve done is amazing and it takes a lot of fortitude to dig out of that sad place and being sad about what happened.
Eric Cropp: Yeah, I just, what made me change is when I got that opportunity to meet Julie, when she came in, when I was in jail and she, you’re not supposed to touch anybody when you’re in jail and she made the mistake, she hugged me and she whispered in my ear, I’m there, I’m on here. I’m on your side. It made me realize I wasn’t alone. Cause she went through the court system. She was going to be put in jail. They allowed her to just serve her time at home and everything. I realized that if I, when I talked to her and what she was doing, I said, maybe I can do something as a patient advocate. And, and one of the, it also helped in this situation is as the judge wanted me to do public speaking for 400 hours and I’m like, oh my, how am I going to do this? Because I’m also on house arrest. So I had that wonderful blank, black bracelet around my ankle. So I’m like, I have to figure out how am I going to go around on my own dime, talk to all these people and, tell my story and tell them about what I want to do in the future. but during that time, I got over of like big deal. I got this angle versus big deal. I have to figure out why I re I had people reach out to me, which was like a blessing. a gentleman from farm con contacted me and said, how would you like to like, do a bunch of, pack tests that we could do? You get the credit for it? And then you call in and answer the questions at the end. So that was able, so I didn’t have to go through security through the airports when I was going to all these places trying to do it helped lessen the burden on me, because sometimes it would take me four hours to get to the airport, just to prove that I wasn’t trying to escape Ohio or whatever. that was an asshole. But by the time I was done, I, wanted to continue doing these talks. And I knew when from these talks, I was getting more and more people reaching out to me saying this happens to me. I made this mistake. I was getting people when I was, doing talks. I’m going through the same thing. You’re going through, what can I do? So I was able to sit down with them and give them some direction. And I thought, wow. I feel like, yes, I’m starting to pay it forward, trying to take my bad situation and help somebody else. So they don’t go through the same rollercoaster that I went through. So I was able to write letters. I was able to testify in court, LAN individuals. I went for four different nurses and about five different pharmacists and went for their hearings, to the board, meet a board hearings as well, and try and did all. I could give them examples of why. This shouldn’t escalate of losing your license. Cause this is what this is, when you learned to be a pharmacist, nurse it back, you don’t learn anything else. This is what you want to do for the rest of your life. So it’s really hard. If you take their license away, they’re pretty much lost. And I’ll go into another thing that when you do this, you take this, license away. And it’s really hard for us to find direction where to go. There’s nobody there to say, Hey, we’re going to help you find another career. We’re going to help you move forward. You’re going to either lead into feeling bad for yourself, wanting to hurt yourself. I unfortunately learned if I would have known there was a nurse out in Seattle who she ended up killing herself because she didn’t know what to do with herself. She had been a nurse for 23 years and she was excellent ICU nurse. And she happened to make a decimal point. And gave too much sodium potassium, chloride to somebody and then killing the patient. And they handled it. Like they handled my surgeon. The nurse was like, oh, she lost her license. And she didn’t know what to do with her life. And that’s part of my thing is I’m trying to convince people. We have to talk, we can’t hide this. We can’t have people keep hurting themselves because they lost their livelihood, their last, their ability to get up in the morning. So I do talk about that with the individuals I have to make sure. Do you have someone to talk to when I find out they’ve had an air, is there some, do you guys have, a second victim, third victim program? Stablish at your institution and at ease you asked what else? w that motivated me. I had, I worked with nationwide children’s hospital down in Columbus, and they started their own. program where they were training individuals in each department. So if something happened, those people could step in, do the job console, the person that made the mistake. It makes sure that they’re added this out of there. Make sure everything’s recorded. There’s self-care for the caregiver, as well as making sure the patient is okay. So I was amazed that they did this and it was, this started with, university of Missouri, nurse out there. her last name is Carr. She started a program out there and I was lucky enough to hear a lecture. I went to, I was giving a lecture and she gave a lecture and she was starting this program all over Missouri. And she was like trying to teach other social workers and other people who would need to step in. When an error occurred, how to develop these programs in our institutions. And I just thought, this is amazing. This has been a help so much. I wish this was available and I was happening. So I have stepped in and looked at when hospitals have been starting these programs, I’ve helped them where I thought they might’ve forgotten something or what I learned from what didn’t do well, when, they introduced it at another hospital they’ve shared, what’s worked and what didn’t work. So I feel like I become a good communicator between hospitals, as well as between pharmacists. And it’s not just in the hospital setting. I have reached out and jumped in to help retail pharmacists, as well as doctors are working out of their other, offices with their nurses and stuff. we had, we do so much chemotherapy in the clinic setting. I have reached out to them about making sure. They have programs set up to because there’s a, there’s an opportunity for a mistake to happen. I unfortunately had cancer myself four, five years ago and they do have amazing check system to make sure you they’re looking at the chart. They have another nurse reading through the IB checking it. They have system where two pharmacists have to check the PA the compound together. So I’m seeing all these major changes that happened in the last 16 years that weren’t, weren’t going when I was involved in it during my round in 2006 when this happened. So it’s been amazing, being on the opposite side, being the patient I’ve seen, what’s working and they’re asking all the right questions or your LA. which hand do you write? And they’re asking all the right things. And like when they had to treat my, the cancer tumor, they made sure they wrote it down. They wrote it on my leg. What was the tumor was and everything. So there was a double-check even for them, if they had to look to see what was needed to be treated there, it’s right there and adding value. So I haven’t seen it again. It’s not just pharmacy. It’s that seeing it in surgery, I was seeing in the oncologist setting. if things are not perfect, unfortunately COVID made it made a lot of, it was whole hard. I’ve noticed so many people, unfortunately getting sick now because they waited so long to the treatments and everything. And. that, that the whole, our whole jump of making sure people are getting taken care of that float on hold, because we were trying to protect them. But a lot of people didn’t get the right treatments for phone eating their mental meds, to getting the right tests, to prevent cancer. That’s one other thing I’m like talking about, how are you dealing with that? You see somebody that’s not stage four and it could have been caught if they had to come in during COVID. So again, it’s another thing where I think constantly was in, shouldn’t been involved because the nurses were taking it personally, the physicians were taking it personally and even some of the pharmacists because they did rounds and they talk to those patients and I felt, wow. If we only had stepped in sooner, we could have helped them. So it’s, it’s not necessarily a medical error, but it’s an air in that we didn’t get the care to the patient in the timely period. yeah, that’s it. I I’ve tried to take my whole negative situation and try to be as positive as possible. I still, you have guilt, you will always go, you wish you, I still relive that day and dreams and I’m like, I’m always trying to fix it, but I figure if I can let people know and they think about, they need to slow down. They need to be, very accurate when it comes to doing chemo, I’ve gone to, I’ve lectured about what they should do now. And I’ve seen so many, institutions that do oncology have, they don’t do chemotherapy on the weekends anymore and because there’s not enough staffing, so they make sure there’s always two pharmacists on duty. they make sure that the college is separate from the IB room and it like that. They only use manufactured solutions. There’s no making any kind of thing from scratch. Even if it’s taking some solution there, aren’t really taking it from the bag. And that two people are checking that to make sure it’s coming from a bag. If it has to be only three Niles or something, but they have really big checklist, just like how now the airplane pilots go through before you fly it down. There’s checklists now in the pharmacies, when they’re dealing with making chemotherapy or making any drugs for ICU, there’s a checklist and going and lecturing, I had to learn what it’s been working in the hospitals, from having cameras set up so that you can see if you’re working on the floor, you can see the technician, you can replay the whole process and you can see them drawing out from the vial. You can see the vile sitting out and see the syringe. So you’re seeing all these. That you don’t didn’t see before, because you were watching over seven technicians. You can’t be there at all. It’s say, all So now there’s ability to go on the computer and actually watch them make everything. So you can go do a double check and people are able to care the bar scanning. If that would have been induced and introduced when it was supposed to at my hospital, caught this there at least 10 times from her grabbing the vials to me, scanning the, see what she had used. Cause I would have the scans up. She didn’t use that. Use the vials. That what is that? Oh, you gotta make this again. This is the wrong thing. That, and that frustrates, Chris and myself so much because when institutions like H from grocery stores to the clothing lines with they scan everything. Why can’t you get this in the hospital systems? It’s, still. Like less than 20%. I think he and I looked it up that is still, there’s so many places that don’t use bar scanning. And it, that’s something that is such an easy catch. retail has really utilized that from, they take the picture, they, it, they blow up the picture so that they can see. So there’s no way of looking at the label and missing something from the, if the numbers to the strain. I think that’s a wonderful thing. The new testing of the solution. Now they test this specific gravity and they have these machines that will identify, look, drug is in there and what concentrations because of the specific gravity. And I think that’s wonderful because that blows, when you are taking clear, the clear you’re like praying. That’s what they put in there because you’re not, you can’t see everything. What’s, everything’s on a clear solution. There’s no difference in color or anything like that. So those in there they’re getting quite inexpensive. They’re not as expensive as I thought they were. And some companies have come out with they’re like $5,000. But if you think of how many things they were catching, not causing an air, that’s, it’s amazing. So I, the one thing being that I worked in the past. Coming up with the system, check your calculations. I was a pharmacist and I work, volunteer to work at night. And you were the only pharmacist on duty. And you had no way of checking your math and I, at the time I knew several institutions were trying to come up with a system that you could go and plug your numbers in. And it’d be a fail safe way of checking your math. A nurse can do this on if she was calculating a dose for an Ivy or changing an IB, it wasn’t another set of eyes. it wasn’t a real person. It was the way if you were doing the calculation, if it didn’t come up, you a new, no, you, did something wrong. You need to redo it or, call somebody and have them double check you. But I think that was, I’ve seen several institutions in my time working on. And talking that have introduced that too, especially when you work in a small hospital and maybe only have 120 beds to 200 beds, and you don’t have the staff like where you mainly have two nurses on a floor and you were at either ends of the floors that they can’t always check the ins when they can’t, those they’re just against each other. So they’re there, there’s new programs that they, both of their Mar and it’ll show it and it’ll show them actual pictures. This is what should be drawn out. So they, they can have something to almost double chat. It sounds simple, but it’s, a nice thing to double check. And when you don’t have another set of eyes, so I’ve seen other systems where, you know, they, you, like I said, before you go on the computer, save everything. So you don’t, you’re not live watching it. You can be checking it later on, but if you go even go, oh, we need to pull that IB, because this doesn’t look right. We need to remake it. You don’t have to go into all the details. You just say, you don’t feel comfortable and they remake it, but they can catch it before it goes. when you’re doing the checking of the IVs, that’s the time where they can double check to see how everything is made. So all these things I think have made pharmacy easier and made less chances for air. I’m seeing more of staffing. We’re there making sure that the there’s two people on it all times. To help each other. even at night shift, there’s somebody to call if it has to call the other, if you’re like working in children’s and you’d have an adult person to call to double-check, but there’s ways so that you have communication. I think that’s the biggest, another thing is communications is free. You can just say something to everybody and it can catch, like every, like I was saying before, if you could just talk and say, this keeps coming up instead of waiting until. Now we have 15 or the same air. If we just talk about, maybe we can reduce it to down to one, one time it happened, but now we’ll see what we can prevent it from occurring shift after shift.
Amanda Brummitt: do you have any advice in creating that, that culture of safety, I know takes years, maybe decades to create, but if you can create it, then, it is space where people are comfortable brainstorming and throwing ideas around asking for a second set of eyes without feeling like there’s any egos involved and, hopefully ultimately reporting errors. And, w what have you found? What is unique in the facilities that have that?
Eric Cropp: What I’ve found is if we can reach the students when they’re in their training period, I do a lecture to the case, medical students, and then I do further nurses. And then I do for the community colleges. I talked to their nursing program. They come back and say that they are more willing to question everything before they, they say I’m new, I’m learning there. There was a time when you got out of school, you were that you were showed real quickly and then that was it. You were not, you weren’t told to keep questioning. If you still didn’t felt comfortable. So I seen a lot more of them coming back and, giving me examples of what’s occurring and they’re seeing where it can change. And so they’re going back and telling the nurse, who’s working with them. when you guys need to try this, and they’ve said that coming back after they’ve been on working with the same staff for a couple of weeks and they’re training. These nurses, even pharmacists are more open to making these changes and they talk about it. So that was one that I did see that makes a difference is if we can reach and talk, knowing more and more schools are talking about medical safety so that the kids are learning when they’re in school. So then when they go on to work in a hospital or even in a retail setting or whatever in the doctor’s office, they’re more likely going to ask, what is your, what, do you do to make it safe for me? they’re asking me and I try to encourage them when I’m telling my story. I say, Hey, ask them, what kind of program do they have for medical safety do get trained in the job. Do you have, is there a reporting system? Is there someone, on duty that they can talk to if they feel bad about something or is there a way that, is there any teaching modules in case they don’t feel comfortable giving a certain drug or something? I try to encourage them to ask those questions because I think it’s education. That’s been a reduce those medical errors as well. So I’ve seen a lot of people write me letters and give you feedback, Cause I’ll come the beginning of the semester. And then like my friend who teaches the nurses has me come in at the end and we just talk about what did they learn? and it becomes like a two hour session of learning all these things that they’ve caught and like what they know and that to be more careful about and they’ll speak up and say, you shouldn’t be working in this condition. They’ll there’ll be the squeaky wheel because they’re not gonna lose anything because they’ll bring up to their instructors and they’ll say something to the institution that this is not safe. So it’s, again, more and more people speaking up makes a big difference, because like you said, it’s hard to change people’s minds and ideas. we’ve been able a lot of times when Chris and I were lecturing, we talked to the boards because I think you need to get involved with the boards of the hospitals, the presidents. And you’d be amazed how many presidents of a lot of institutions are on board because they don’t want to pay out these huge dollar amounts for these stupid errors. And a lot of them are really dumb errors. And then they also just want to keep their staff and patients safe. They don’t want to have a bad reputation of being, mistakes having occurred and everything, and. A lot of things I’ve noticed too, is there’s a small group of people were there when an error occurs, they’re there, they’re working on having the person who made the mistake, confront the patient with somebody as a meat meteor to try to staff is from it, escalating to this thing. I feel, have them say if they, the patient wants to talk to someone and the caregiver wants to talk, they work together and have them talk and say, I feel so horrible. This happened to you. And I don’t want this. I am in and say, be honest, I’ve learned when I’m mistaken, I’m going to make sure that it doesn’t occur to somebody else. And it breaks down the. The patient isn’t angry. There’s a lot of people that something happens to them. They’re very angry. And if they’re just a communication, you don’t even have to say that person made them say it. You can set 70 from that department come, haven’t talked to the patient and say, we are very sorry that this occurred. And we want you, we will do everything possible to make it right. And we don’t want to suffer again to somebody else. And it’s made a difference. I thought a lot of people were scared about that because they thought, you’re sharing so much information. They’re going to want to Sue more. But they found that it quieted down that thinking of they didn’t care what I should assume. I’ll get this much money for them or they hurt me. And it’s just, it’s an, a little sub factor, but I think it’s really making a difference too. It’s just, like I said, even if it’s not that person, it’s the representative. And I did this when I was working on. Hospice. And I had a pharmacist who didn’t know what they were doing, and I shouldn’t have put them on night shift for doing that. And I ended up going in and making the dosage, but it was like the poor patient was analyzed. They needed, the medicines went away and I went and faced the family and explained to them that I was really sorry that this occurred. And I think I made a big difference because it could have escalated to something else that attracted. I admitted that this was wrong and I told him what I was going to do differently. And I, relieved that situation, so that, cause it was almost, it was an air because that person didn’t feel comfortable with their doing that, night to set out a cartridge of morphine. And I didn’t realize when you hired this person, how they didn’t know enough. And I, didn’t know that my technician didn’t know this other pharmacists didn’t feel comfortable. So there was another, this was before this happened to me, but I learned from that to talk to people and try to appease the situation. And the family was grateful and they just, they wanted to hear someone just being honest with them. So it’s not perfect picture, it, that also helps in, and again, it’s that communication, people will be more likely less angry at you if you just admit something. So if it’s not the patient it’s Hey, I’ve I, this happens to me. I want this not to happen. So another nurse on the floor, I don’t want this to happen, to another patient. So again, it’s breaking down those barriers of you. Don’t talk about, we just push it out of the rug we need, we have to talk about it and
Amanda Brummitt: really think that makes
Eric Cropp: it makes a big difference here.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah, absolutely. So I know that there’s a lot written about it from a risk management consideration and that it absolutely makes sense. And, I am curious, especially in your personal situation and with the beautiful relationship that you and Chris Jerry have today, was it also simply therapeutic to be able to have that conversation with,
Eric Cropp: because when we got to sit down for the first time together, I was able to like what I wanted to do that night that it occurred. I was able to say, I am so sorry, just having to now. I was able to, I wasn’t even allowed to say anything when this escalated, and I wanted to talk to them and I think that’s what they, especially him, it’s time. You just wanted someone to say, Hey, we messed up let’s w we’re sorry, in hospital did their best, appeasing them and, settling and everything. But I think that Jerry has really just wanted, someone to say, I’m sorry. And it really, it wasn’t really done until that day when we both sat down, everybody deals with grief differently. unfortunately Kelly was more angry at me and she had every right to be, and that’s how you know. And so when her and her father. decided to make this go to civil. they didn’t get what they wanted from me. And I thought I stand on the ladder and everything and it never got to them. And that made Chris sad too. Cause he w he didn’t know how this it escalated. Cause by then, it’s unfortunate that the fact that there are mirrors, that it destroyed a marriage going through all this grief about their child. It was hard for him. And then when I think we got to sit down, he was able to say, sorry to me, as well, as I said, sorry to him. And we realized it was time to take this negative and make something positive. And we were lucky. He had a wonderful girlfriend at the time that really, she talked to him and he was able to like, Hey, I think you really need to talk to this guy and tell him how you feel, Chris was never really angry with me, but he at least was able to express how he felt. He said, I felt so much angry in the beginning, but then I felt, then I realized when I researched all this stuff that you weren’t, the one main person involved in this, you were up, it was a, it made me again, that was like my second step of my healing process, because I started to find out first that there was other people like me and that there was ways to go on with my life. And then secondly, being the forgiveness that I felt I needed to get something, to alleviate a lot of the guilt, because when I was lecturing, I was just, I was, everybody said, you sound like you’re just miserable. you’re just horrible. And it was, I was because I felt a lot of guilt and unfortunately nothing happened to the technician because they pretty much pressed her. They said, if you, she would testify against. Then she wouldn’t have to go through the same thing. Now. She still is living with it and we try to contact her. But I know she’s living with a lot of guilt and she’s going to have to do that with the rest of her life. It’s hard. we talk about that. There’s such a, one of my slides and I deal talk is there’s six steps. And then the sixth step is where are you going to go from here? And you go through the brief and all this stuff and you go through the learning and some of us have trained in console. Some of us have to forget about it and go on with it. And some of us get, let go, or, so there’s at the end of the chart, there’s usually. Three arrows. One is you move on and you and everybody learns from it and you thrive in your job. Then there’s those who live with it. They’re miserable. They have their, they ha they begin to hate their job and everything. And then there’s those who just fall out. They drop out of the profession and everything. And when, in my situation, because none of these things were done, counseling and support and letting the person still work in the job, it affected me from the technician, never practiced anymore. The nurse who was, who gave the dose, she ended up changing careers. So she wasn’t even doing nursing anymore. And the factor got out of oncology. So that there was four people that were for professionals that could have continued to do their job and do, and make a difference in people’s eyes. And they all change that their lives change. So that’s why it’s so important to be this. Special person, shoulder to cry on person is going to step in and take care of the problems it’s so necessary. we’re going to avoid those career changes, avoid suicide, avoid burnout. We’re going to avoid all these things that, because the people are living with the guilt, it’s working to avoid a lot of that stuff. And again, it’s, I go over it, say this all the time, but it’s education. it’s using it as a learning experience. Not as a punishment. Yeah. I don’t want to see anybody else. I’m going to try to do the darndest to go down to Tennessee right now and help run the Rhonda with her, case, because I know. It felt so much guilty, pleaded guilty, but I really, jail’s not going to solve their solution and solve her problem she needs to do is lecture and tell her story and tell how the pictures to machines that this has got to stop because everybody shook their head, said, oh, I know this happens still. I’m in my job. It’s happens everywhere. So why should one person be punished for all? It’s the same mistake that’s occurring over and over and, uses this as a learning, like we got to fix this, the system in the Pyxis machine. So then the nobody can override it. It was like in my situation, when we would make the nutritional bags that they put on TPN. There was opportunities for the technician when they were entering the orders and override when there was too much of a concentration added in that. And if the pharmacist wasn’t double-checking things carefully, it could be missed. And they’re assuming no technician should be able to override the system. And I’ve worked at two institutions where there was always issues with that. And the pharmacist had to go in and fix it, but it was, they couldn’t stop. They have a stop in there that prevents a person from entering the wrong. Those days are around the mouth. So that’s, again, a system and we really, we have to have better computer programs. there’s just so many meds coming out. We can’t keep track of everything and all the different interactions and, there’s too many sounded like, so it’s just, again, we’ve got to get better computer programs out there that are going to have red flags on there that just say, can’t dispense. This is going to cause this and this issue, or, you put pick, when you’re scanning it up, you pick the wrong medication. This one can, it’s just, again, it’s just, we it’s good, better computer programs that are, ways of stopping. sending out the road or being able to grab the wrong dosage and these Pyxis machines and even in the drawers, cause a lot of the doors are locked and they can only pull out the drawer for that patient, but where the fact that they scan the patient and then scan their thing. So there’s systems are there, there’s always ways to override, cause I’ve seen hospitals where they have a whole page of the patient’s ID. I don’t want to page and they get the, scan it and get, grab the meds and go to the room. So it defeats the whole locking the door and everything. So there’s always ways that humans are creative to override things and stuff. You’ll find it. And people share that. And I try to say, make sure that you’re not doing this.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah. Instead of telling that in orientation, let’s talk about reporting and sharing information.
Eric Cropp: Yeah. I’m praying, now we seeing what happens is Aronda I hope that it’s not going to make people think. The afraid to report errors and, do this report, and not let this thing escalate. I don’t know why, this happened and occurred. And why is it didn’t stay in the hospital? I don’t know if it was, again, a family member or something that wanted this to go to court. There’s still, it’s very scary that we don’t, it oversteps malpractice. You think you’re protected by malpractice and that’s not necessarily true anymore. And that doesn’t help you when you become a pro in a civil case that doesn’t pay for your costs of being sued. None of that stuff, that’s all out of your own pocket. So that was an issue that I was like, oh wow. And I just I’m, I now hate seventy-five grand pay for lawyers to try to keep me out of jail and to fight this and that. And you don’t have your jobs, so you can’t. You’re borrowing from this thing and that to pay that it’s scary when you’re going through that. You, I just hope she has somebody there. That’s listening and talking. I’ve read articles that, people are trying to show their support, but it, they need to have bodies down there when she’s being sentenced soon, that can speak out before his, when I was, satins, they waited and they delayed mine in that, that, judge had surgery procedure done, and he changed his whole mind of what he was going to sentence me by what had happened to him. So I was using it as an example, even by him, because something happened during his stay at the hospital. This was shared with you by my lawyers afterwards, but because I was only, I think everything was like, I was only supposed to, do home arrest and then everything changed. I didn’t know I was going into jail that day. It was all. Your, you have to serve a year jail year of home arrest and, 800 hours of community service. And then he decided I’m going to cut that in half. And then I’m like, oh my God, I’m going to jail. I didn’t, I was like, it was a I waiting experience. Cause I’m like, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I thought, we had talked it through that. I would get a less punishment of it. And I thought the fact that I was lecturing and everything, that I would be a better penance because I was showing I was learning from this mistake and that I was helping others prevent having the same thing happen to them. But. It in the court system that really look at it that way. Yeah.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah. Yeah. I’m thankful for everything you did afterwards
Eric Cropp: with it, for sure. I answered a lot of your things you have.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah. You, you gave us tons of great information. I would love for you to end with one last piece of advice for infusion center owners and operators. what’s something tangible that they can do tomorrow in their center,
Eric Cropp: if they can possibly make sure they have some sort of bar scanning going on. And if they can afford the opportunity to photograph when the technicians are making the solutions, I think those are two of the biggest helps because on one pharmacist, can’t watch everything that’s being done. And we’re always putting, clear into clear and, you also need to make sure you have the best working conditions because. So many of us are given a space that was just left over in a hospital or in the institution. And that is not necessarily safe enough to be really doing what you’re doing. And we saw that there was a pharmacist who, was prosecuted for giving out contaminated eyedrops that blinded a bunch of people in the new England states and stuff. and now he’s serving seven years in jail right now. So you really want to make sure you have the best conditions for your workers and the safest additions for the patients that you’re taking care of, because that’s the new thing too. They’re going after and in the setting, if you’re worried about. Definitely. We all don’t want to open our mouth when we’re working in these bad conditions. we, if you don’t open your mouth, that situation could come about. And I don’t know the whole story. I got two different stories, but I believe that they probably said something about the bad working conditions, but they didn’t say enough and you really got up say, Hey, I don’t want to be another Eric. I don’t want to be another Julie or, Chris has his image of Emily put on a lot of the PA pediatric doses and it reminds people to take a little extra time and some of the hassles have a picture of that. So they make, they look at that every day and they know they’re doing this to make sure that no other Emily occurs. And I think that’s the amazing thing to do is you in the back of your mind, you’re going to make sure that you’re going to try to do the least amount of harm to anybody because you see her face, that everybody you’re taking care of it could be one of your family members. So I just have it take a pick advantage if you can afford it, take advantage of the technology out there, because I think that’s going to make things run the smoothest, have an opportunity. If you’re overwhelmed, have a stopping moment. If it means having the staff take a five minute break, everybody it’s just to walk away and then come back fresh. and then, and making sure the conditions are right, because I still keep reading about those and, a lot of pharmacists, they’re going out to the pharmacists that are compounding. So these IVs are considered compound and they’re, having a lot new, laws coming out that are going after these, institutions that are compounding from eyedrops to Ivy solutions and stuff. So you want to make sure you got that checklist like pilots have you, you’re doing everything on that list and have it at every station. they look at this checklist and before it goes out or is delivered, they’ve gone through that. So that’s my advice.
Amanda Brummitt: Okay, thank you so much for that. and honestly, Eric, thank you for being willing to share your story and the tragedy that you went through, especially in the spirit of helping other healthcare workers, hopefully avoid that. And, thank you to you and Chris cherry for all the work that you guys continue to do. We really appreciate it. Yeah.
Eric Cropp: And if you can pass along, if anybody wants to contact me, if they want to contact you, you can give them my email address or my phone number, and they can always contact you and pass along. I’m more than willing to come and talk to them and help them talk to their institution. If they feel that they’re working in bad conditions and someone needs to be the squeaky wheel, because I don’t have anything to lose. So I can be their advocate and stay, you can’t do this. And I give them plenty of examples of what, were escalates from them, not doing the right thing, because I keep files of that stuff.
Amanda Brummitt: Okay. That is a great offer and, hope everybody takes Eric up on it. And, we so appreciate your time.
Eric Cropp: All right. Thank you so much.
Amanda Brummitt: Eric had so many great tangible strategies for supporting healthcare providers and reducing medication errors. I hope that you can utilize them to create a safer infusion space for your patients and caregivers. And if you aren’t familiar with the reinfused software platform or RX tool kit, take a test drive to see how they can save you a ton of money in your practice while also creating a safer space for infusions. My name is Amanda Brummett and we’ll catch you in the next episode.
Guest Speaker:
Eric Cropp, RPh is a registered pharmacist with experience in Oncology and Pediatrics. He graduated from the University of Toledo School of Pharmacy, and currently works with the Community College of Cleveland to improve IV training. Following a tragic medication error in 2006, Eric now advocates for safer medication administration. He is available for lectures and consults regarding medication errors, burnout, and other pharmacy issues.
