While performing the final verification, a pharmacist notices that a technician had selected metFORMIN instead of the prescribed metroNIDAZOLE for a patient, Renata Solis. The error is caught and corrected before the medicine leaves the pharmacy, so the patient is never affected. To strengthen the quality programme, what is the technician's BEST next step regarding this event?
- ATake no further action, because the wrong drug never reached the patient and caused no harm.
- BDocument it in the near-miss reporting system so the event can feed continuous quality improvement. Correct
- CSubmit a MedWatch report, because any wrong-drug selection is a reportable adverse event.
- DFile a formal complaint against the technician with the state board for the selection error.
Why A is wrong: It is tempting to drop a caught error, but unrecorded near misses hide patterns; failing to act forfeits the chance to prevent the next, possibly uncaught, mistake.
Why B is correct: Recording near misses lets the pharmacy analyse contributing factors, such as look-alike names, and implement safeguards, which is the core purpose of a continuous quality improvement programme.
Why C is wrong: MedWatch captures adverse events and product problems that affect patients; a near miss with no patient exposure does not meet that threshold and is handled internally.
Why D is wrong: Punitive escalation discourages the open reporting that quality systems depend on; a single look-alike selection error is addressed through process review, not licensing action.