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Negligence in Pharmacy Practice and Medication Errors

awi-admin • Jan 27, 2020
Negligence in Pharmacy Practice and Medication Errors

Medication errors are particularly dangerous because they’re difficult to detect until adverse side effects start presenting themselves in a patient.

The term “medication errors” broadly encompasses a wide variety of negligence related to prescribing and administering medications. Unfortunately, medication errors are common in general practice and in hospitals. It is intuitive that prescribing the wrong medication could result in a problem — doing so can worsen patient conditions, create new issues, delay treatment, or in some cases, even cause death. Any step in the prescribing process can generate errors. Faults in dose selection, omitted transcription, and poor handwriting are common. What’s particularly dangerous about such errors is that it’s often difficult to determine if one has been a victim of medication error-related medical malpractice until adverse side effects start presenting themselves in a patient. If you or a loved one believes medication errors have impacted your life, speak to the experienced attorneys at The Law Offices of Cardaro & Peek today.

Prescription (Pharmacy) Error

All procedures related to prescribing drugs are potential error-generating steps. Due to the potential for error by multiple parties when dispensing medication to treat a patient, determining who was negligent is a necessary step. But, determining the source of the medication error can be a relatively straightforward task if all the documentation is in place. 

Prescription errors are typically events that derive from simple mistakes at the pharmacy, such as writing a dose that is higher than the correct one because of erroneous calculation, or mixing up drugs due to similar names. A pharmacist’s roles and responsibilities can go beyond dispensing the prescribed medication, and vary from state to state. In Maryland, for example, pharmacists must offer to review and discuss prescription drugs with the recipient. 

Prescriber (Doctor) Error

On the other hand, a prescriber error most often derives from an incorrect medical decision. A prescribing fault can arise from the choice of the wrong drug, the wrong dose, the wrong route of administration, the wrong frequency or duration of treatment, and also from inappropriate or erroneous prescribing in relation to the characteristics of the individual patient or co-existing treatments. It may also depend on inadequate evaluation of potential harm deriving from a given treatment. 

Additionally, in the case of prescribing errors, inadequate feedback control or lack of cooperation between doctor and nurses can cause a chain reaction leading to an error down the line. Inadequate staffing, lack of skills and knowledge of relevant rules, tasks outside the routine, or taking care of another doctor’s patient have also been identified as conditions associated with prescribing faults.

What To Do

If you believe your medication is not helping or worsening your health condition, seek medical attention right away. If the pharmacy or physician notices the error before you, they must inform you of the mistake and take steps to monitor your health for adverse effects.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by a medication error, you should consider taking legal actions to recover damages caused by the negligent actions of the prescribing physician or pharmacy. Having solid documentation of the situation can help you strengthen your medical malpractice case. Be sure to document when the mistake was made or when the error was discovered. Determine how the mistake occurred and who was informed throughout the ordeal. If you can’t determine how the mistake happened, our team of medical experts at Cardaro & Peek can review your case and help find the answers to your questions.

Contact The Law Offices of Cardaro & Peek, LLC Today

Do you believe that you or your loved one has suffered as a result of medical malpractice or medical neglect? You need to talk to an experienced team of local lawyers today.

The lawyers at Cardaro & Peek, LLC have the experience and resources necessary to investigate and litigate all types of medical claims throughout Maryland and Washington D.C. Cardaro & Peek, LLC has medical personnel on staff and has access to nationally recognized, board-certified physicians and other experts, to assist in the investigation, analysis, and prosecution of all types of medical malpractice claims. If you or a loved one have experienced malpractice, give us a call at 410-752-6166. Please visit our website www.cardarolaw.com and follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn for more information.

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