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6 Ways to Reduce Human Errors in Pharmaceuticals

Human error is a major cause of the GMP violation and deviation in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Human errors have critical effects on pharmaceutical product quality. About 80% of the product quality issues occur due to the human errors. Human
errors are traced by the occurrence of the deviations in the process. Most of the root causes of deviations are human errors due to improper
communication or failure to follow the written procedure.

Following are some solutions to minimize the human errors.

1. Identify the Error Reduction Opportunities: The space where a human error can occur must be identified in the manufacturing and quality
control. It should be identified separately for the equipment, documentation and systems where improvement can be done.

2. Redesign Procedures: Make required changes in standard operating procedures and formats those are lengthy and difficult to follow by the
users. Procedures should be short and written clearly. Try to make the formats and forms as short as possible and easy to fill. Write clear instruction
to fill where the possibilities of human error are there. Remove the sections from procedures and formats those are not useful.

3. Improve Supervision: Instructions to the workers and pharmacists should be given at every stage of manufacturing by the supervisors. Before
starting a specific job working instructions should be given by the supervisor. Supervisors should be on the floor not in the office.

4. Improve Communication: Communication plays an important role in the reduction of human errors. Lack of communication in different shifts
causes a lot of problems. Sometimes the personnel in night shift do not communicate the process findings to the morning shift in-charge that causes
the problem. Communication between quality assurance and manufacturing department should be proper at every stage.

5. Job Assignment: Performance of the individual personnel should be monitored by supervisor and job should be assigned according to their
capabilities. It shall give the better result and chances of human errors shall also be reduced. Every time you assign a job, find the person who fits
best to the job for its successful completion.

6. Training: On job training is necessary to all workers for all critical activities. Training should include all possible human errors and related question
that may occur during the process.

These are the common ways to prevent the human error during pharmaceutical manufacturing. Multiple checks and signatures during the process
can also reduce the occurrence of human errors. We should find the areas of improvements in the process we are handling. Improvement is a
continuous process that never ends. Share with us in comments that you have done to reduce the human error in your workplace.

Ankur Choudhary is India's first professional pharmaceutical blogger, author and founder of Pharmaceutical Guidelines, a widely-read
pharmaceutical blog since 2008. Sign-up for the free email updates for your daily dose of pharmaceutical tips.
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