Davis Levin Livingston Firm Blog »
November 23, 2011
Medication Errors
While most medication errors have little to no effect on patients, prescribing the incorrect medication to a patient can cause serious damage. In certain cases, instructing a patient to take improper medication can cause severe injury or even death. Medication errors are committed by health care professional and can include prescribing, packaging, product labeling, compounding, dispensing, distributing, administering, educating, and monitoring medication use. The most common form of medication error is the administration of an improper dose of medicine. A study by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) showed that 41% of all fatal medication errors are from improper dosages. Giving an incorrect drug accounted for 16% of the errors, as did administering the drug the wrong way. Nearly half of the fatal medication errors occurred in people over the age of 60. The elderly often take a variety of prescription medication making them more susceptible to improper mixing. Medication errors are not as uncommon as one might expect. According to The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, in recent years, as many as 1.3 million people suffered from medication errors in a given year. Many medication errors are not discovered until after the patient is sent home from the hospital and a nurse or doctor reviews the patient’s records and realizes that the patient took the wrong medicine or took it in an improper manner. This often occurs before any significant injury has manifest. When a medication error causes a significant injury to a patient the hospital should inform the patient or the patient’s family about the error and the potential effects and harm to the patient. Medical professionals are always going to look out for their careers and practices and will be inclined to indicate that the consequences of said error are less severe than they truly may be. Thus, if you or someone you know has suffered an injury as a result of a medication error, contact an attorney. An attorney can research the case and discover the errors committed and how the errors contributed to the injury.
Category:
[Medical Malpractice ]
POST A COMMENT/QUESTION
Use this form to add a comment to this entry.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER
Our Web site provides general information to the public and is not intended as legal advice in any particular situation or to any specific individual. Before relying upon the contents in our Web site regarding a particular legal problem or situation, you should first obtain professional consultation. There can be no attorney and client relationship between our firm and any individual, nor any duty to act by our attorneys, until there is a written retainer agreement signed by both client and attorney. |
