The lawyers at Toon Law firm have extensive experience with medical malpractice cases and cases involving medication errors.
Prescription and drug negligence are commonly referred to as "medication errors". A medication error in these contexts is:
- Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer
Medication errors are a form of medical malpractice. Medication errors are surprisingly common.
- Every year more than 7,000,000 million people experience a medication error
- 10% of hospital patients will be subject to a medication error
- It costs over $40 billion per year to care for and treat patients who are victims of medication errors
- 7,000 to 9,000 patients die each year from medication errors
- Medication errors are the 8th leading cause of death in the United States
There are numerous types of medication errors:
- A medication error results when a patient receives the wrong medication, the wrong dose, or medication at the wrong time
- A medication error occurs when the doctor prescribes the wrong medication or dose
- A medication error occurs when the nursing home orders the wrong medication or dose
- A medication error occurs when the pharmacy fills the wrong medication or dose
- A medication error occurs when the healthcare provider administers the wrong medication or dose
- A medication error occurs when there is a failure to account for a patient’s medical conditions, allergies or drug interactions
Medication errors can involve one or more responsible parties. In some instances, there are multiple parties committing multiple errors. For example, the doctor might write the wrong name on the prescription. The medication may be intended for someone else. The pharmacy that receives the prescription and fills the medication for the wrong patient. The patient is allergic to one of the medications, but the pharmacy does not address the red flag and fills the medication anyway. The healthcare provider that administers the medications does not check to make sure the patient is supposed to receive the medications. The healthcare provider violates safety rules and administers the medication. In these instances, all of the providers have committed medication errors that have harmed the patient. The prescription and drug negligence lawyers at Toon Law Firm know how to pursues these claims and lawsuits.
Because medication errors are so common and dangerous, health care providers are supposed to implement and follow numerous policies, procedures, checks, and balances. These include:
- Double checking all information contained within the prescription
- Confirming the prescription against the patient’s medication
- Checking for contraindications, drug interactions and allergies
- Confirming the right patient is receiving the right medication
- Confirming the right patient is receiving the right dose
- Confirming the right patient is receiving the medicine via the right route
Many times, healthcare providers fail to follow these policies, procedures, checks and balances. In fact, with most medication errors, numerous policies, procedures, checks and balances are completely or partially disregarded. Numerous reasons may result in injuries, such as improper training, lack of proper staffing or just plain laziness.
Many healthcare providers will attempt to argue a medication error is just a “mistake” or resulted from “mere inadvertence.” They make these arguments to try and minimize their role and responsibility for what they have done. The lawyers at Toon Law firm have extensive experience with medical malpractice cases and cases involving medication errors. Please contact us at 918.477.7884 and we will immediately begin to identify all parties responsible for the medication error and identify the reasons the medication error occurred so that we can hold the responsible parties accountable.
