California state lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill that would require pharmacies to report any prescription errors. A measure aimed at reducing the estimated 5 million errors that pharmacists make every year.

The bill AB 1286 still needs to be signed by

the governor.

Gov. Gavin Newsom,

WHO

has not indicated whether he supports this. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Times detailed earlier this month how Californians have been harmed by the mistakes pharmacists have made, most of which occur at chain pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens. Pharmacists at those stores often fill hundreds of prescriptions during a shift, while also providing vaccinations, calling doctors to confirm prescriptions and working the cash register.

In a 2021 survey of California-licensed pharmacists, 91% of those working at chain pharmacies said staffing levels were not high enough to provide adequate care to patients.

California pharmacies make millions of mistakes. They fight to keep that secret

The bill, authored by Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco, would also require pharmacies to have a technician or clerk to assist the pharmacist for much of the day.

The California Community Pharmacy Coalition, a lobbying group that represents pharmacies, including the major chains, opposed it.

The chain pharmacies have said the errors are rare and that they have taken steps to ensure patient safety.

The states Board of Pharmacy sponsored the bill. The board, which supervises pharmacies, says it does not know whether the number of prescription errors has increased or decreased, because pharmacies do not have to report them.

The Times found that the errors included cases where pharmacists gave customers the wrong drug, a dosage that was too high or too low, or dangerously incorrect instructions for taking the medication.

Some errors were serious. According to one study, as many as 9,000 Americans die every year from prescribing errors.

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Under the bill, the error reports would not be made public. Instead, the pharmacies sent them to a third party, which would provide anonymized information to the pharmacy board.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council, one of the groups supporting the bill, praised its passage by lawmakers on Thursday.

We have seen our member pharmacy staff become increasingly overwhelmed by their workloads in recent years and it is time for California to ensure that our community pharmacies reduce the factors that can cause medication errors, said Todd Walters, president of UFCW Local 135.