Pharmacy Error Injury Lawyer Blog

According to news from the Jersey Journal that our Baltimore, Maryland medication mistake attorneys have been following, a local Walgreens Pharmacy has made another pharmacy error, the second in six months, by erroneously filling an 18-month old child’s acetaminophen elixir medication, similar to Tylenol, with an acetaminophen product containing codeine, a powerful pain reliever.

After unknowingly giving her child a pharmacy misfill for a week, Jannette Jackson reportedly became alarmed when her daughter seemed groggy and tired and was not improving with the medication.

Jackson then discovered the pharmacy error and confronted Walgreens, who admitted the prescription mistake. Jackson claims that her pediatrician was shocked to hear of the error, and stated that luckily the codeine dosage was not lethal, and did not cause any allergic reaction or personal injury to the child.

In the previous medication error six months ago by same Walgreens Pharmacy, that our attorneys reported on in a related Baltimore prescription error blog, a two-year-old boy was prescribed a hydrocortisone prescription to treat his allergies. The pharmacy mistakenly gave the child an incorrect prescription for 10mg of oxycodone, a powerful pain medication that had been filled for another patient. The two-year-old child was reportedly given one of the Oxycodone pills, upon which the pharmacy error was discovered and the child was rushed to the hospital.

Continue reading " Another Child Receives Prescription Mix-up From Same Walgreens Pharmacy " »

Our Maryland pharmacy error attorneys have been following the recent news story surrounding a prescription drug error that resulted from drug theft, leaving a man without proper pain medication management while undergoing a kidney stone surgery.

According to Fox-9 News, in November of 2010, Larry King checked into Abbot Northwestern Hospital for kidney stone removal surgery. King was reportedly told that the 30-minute operation would be painless. While receiving Fentanyl, a powerful pain relieving medication that according to a recent Baltimore medication error blog is 100 times more powerful than morphine, Sarah May Casareto, the nurse responsible for administrating his surgery pain medication, allegedly stole 300 micrograms from King’s pain dosage in order to take the drugs herself—telling him that he would have to deal with the pain because they couldn’t give him a lot of medication.

Casareto’s prescription pain medication error and drug theft was reportedly discovered by other medical professionals during the operation, after Casareto started exhibiting strange behavior, which allegedly included slurred speech, dropping syringes in the operating room, and falling asleep. When confronted with drug abuse and drug theft, the nurse allegedly still held four unlabeled syringes in her pocket. King has filed a criminal complaint against Casareto, who refused a drug test and immediately resigned after the incident.

As a result of the drug abuse incident, King reportedly felt an extremely high pain level during the surgery, and doctors eventually gave him additional medication to help him through the rest of the operation. He claimed to have filed criminal and possibly a civil case to make sure that other patients don’t experience the same painful medication error that he went through.

Continue reading " Prescription Pain Medication Error Due to Alleged Drug Theft " »

According to a recent study in The Journal of Pain, that our prescription error attorneys based in Rockland, Maryland have been following, medication errors involving pain relievers, or analgesics, including errors made in prescribing, are a substantial contributor to adverse patient events in pain therapy that are preventable.

The study was performed in a hospital facility with 631 beds, and found that the frequency of pain medication errors in hospitals to be 3 per 1,000 prescriptions.

Researchers at the Albany Medical Center in the state of New York reportedly found in previous research that a major number of prescription analgesic errors are preventable, occurring in all stages of the prescription medication usage process, with the primary cause being prescribing errors. The researchers then combed through a large database containing prescribing errors that had been previously prevented by pharmacists in order to pinpoint the main characteristics associated with an increased risk for medication errors.

The overall drug error rate in the study was found to be 2.87 errors per 1,000 orders with a drug prescribing error rate of .63 per 1000 that was potentially serious. Error rates with analgesics were reportedly found to be higher in pediatric orders, a topic discussed in our pharmacy error injury blog from last week.

Continue reading " Study Finds Frequency of Pain Relieving Medication Errors in Hospitals " »

In a recent blog post, our Prince George’s County pharmacy error attorneys recently discussed the importance for individuals to communicate more effectively with their doctors and pharmacists, to promote the safe and effective use of drug therapy and reduce the risk of medication error.

Every year, according to research by the Institute of Medicine, 1.5 million people are injured by medication-related events. According to the APhA, an important step for medication error prevention is for individuals to carry accurate health records and current lists of prescription medication with them to show doctors and pharmacists that include the medications, the dosage, and the health conditions that the medication is treating.

The APhA claims that patient medication lists reduce the risk of medication duplication, incorrect dosages, pharmacy misfill, and other harmful drug side effects that could come from dangerous interactions. All patient allergies should also be clearly stated on the list, along with any other important information that could prevent medication error by providing emergency staff and pharmacists with important information that could be lifesaving.

The APhA also recommends that patients get to know their pharmacists, as next to doctors, pharmacists are the second most trusted medication experts and providers of healthcare needs.

In an earlier blog post our attorneys suggested other steps to take to reduce the risk of medication error injuries from pharmacy misfill or error:

Continue reading " Keeping Accurate Health Records and Medication Lists Can Prevent Medical Errors " »

In recent news that our pharmacy misfill injury attorneys in Washington, D.C. have been following, a medication error occurred in a local pharmacy, after a pregnant woman in Colorado was mistakenly given the incorrect medication for another patient who had a similar sounding name.

According to KDVR-TV, Mareena Silva, who is six weeks pregnant, went to Safeway to pick up her antibiotics and was mistakenly given the prescription for Maria Silva, containing Methotrexate, a medication reportedly used to treat cancer.

By the time Silva realized the pharmacy misfill, she had already reportedly taken the first pill. Silva reportedly rushed back to Safeway, where the pharmacist recommended that she throw the pill up, as it had been 30 minutes since she took the medication. Her doctor then sent an ambulance to Safeway.

Methotrexate, the drug Silva took due to the prescription mix-up, can reportedly cause birth defects in an unborn baby. The drug is also reportedly used to cause abortions in pregnancies that are troubled. The manufacturer also warns that there have been reported deaths linked to the incorrect administration of this drug.

After picking up what she thought was the antibiotic, the pharmacist reportedly even stated that the prescribed drug was not good for a pregnant woman. What Silva didn’t realize at the time is that the pharmacist was talking about the Methotrexate.

Continue reading " Dangerous Safeway Pharmacy Mix-up Gives Pregnant Woman Wrong Medication " »

As our Baltimore County pharmacy error attorneys discussed in a recent blog, according to a recent study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), medical errors are a leading cause of personal injury and death in this country, and rates for possible adverse drug events were three times higher with children than adults in hospitals, with an even higher rate for infants in intensive care units.

In a new study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, a report found that preparing small medication dosages from syringes for infants and children can be dangerously inaccurate and cause medication dosing errors.

According to the report, in administering potent drugs to young patients, small doses are often prepared from medication stock of less than 0.1 milliliter (mL) in size, but the current equipment used to administer the drug does not allow for the correct and accurate measuring of drug volumes that are less than 0.1 mL.

Dr. Christopher Parshuram, the author of the study, who works in the University of Toronto's Department of Pediatrics and directs the University of Toronto Center for Patient Safety's Pediatric Patient Safety Research, stated that medications regularly requiring small doses include narcotics and sedatives that are extremely powerful, such as morphine and fentanyl—both drugs that as our Maryland medication error attorneys have reported in a recent blog, have a high-risk for medication mistakes which could lead to patient injury or wrongful death.

Continue reading " Study Finds Small Doses of Drugs From Syringes Could Cause Medication Error in Children " »