Medical Devices

Errors that Occur During Administration of Medication via Enteral Feeding Tubes

December 11, 2022 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Feeding tubes can be an essential tool used to administer medicine to patients who need it. People who have difficulty swallowing or difficulty feeding may need enteral feeding tubes. Although an essential tool, more must be done to prevent errors that occur when preparing and administering medications via enteral feeding tubes. Enteral feeding tubes allow liquid food to enter the stomach or intestine through a tube. Enteral feeding tube errors occur for a variety of reasons, including gaps in training, incorrect tube or route size, improper preparation, and utilization of the wrong administration technique.

What Are the Causes of Feeding Tube Mistakes?

In some instances, practitioners have not received the proper training associated with prescribing, verifying, prepping, and administering specific medications through feeding tubes. Knowledge may be passed down from practitioners, but there may lack a standard policy for doing so to ensure that there are no gaps in knowledge. Additionally, there are errors that occur if a prescriber selects an incorrect route, such as selecting the oral route of administration for a patient who actually requires medication via an enteral feeding tube. Improper preparation can result in adverse reactions for the patient and the practitioner. In these scenarios, if a practitioner fails to use proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and crushes a hazardous medication, this can result in toxicity or reduced efficacy of the medication. Additionally, error also occurs if the wrong administration technique is used. This includes mixing multiple medications together to give to a patient at once, failing to flush the tube before and after medication administration, and mixing medications with enteral feedings.

In order to prevent these errors, practitioners should screen for enteral feeding tube restrictions, create policies that are located in a central location for reference, and should ensure that practitioners are properly educated on how to safely prepare and administer medication. In addition, because patients will often follow the same procedure to prepare and administer medications at home, it is important to educate patients about safe practices. If you have reason to suspect that a loved one has suffered injuries due to error that occurred during the administration of medication via an enteral feeding tube, contact an experienced and skilled medical malpractice attorney today to discuss your options.

Recent Drug Recalls May Impact Maryland Patients

September 9, 2021 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Pharmaceutical drugs are intended to treat serious illnesses and conditions. As a result, these drugs are often very powerful and carry the potential to cause severe injuries in the event of even a minor error. One common type of Maryland medication error involves recalled medication.

While most pharmaceutical drugs are manufactured according to very specific criteria, sometimes something goes wrong during the manufacturing process. It could be that a base ingredient was contaminated or the factory where the drug was created suffered some type of equipment malfunction. When a medication is not made according to the precise specifications, it can cause the medication not to work—or worse—it can cause other very serious side effects.

Recently, an industry news source reported on several drug recalls. For example, one manufacturer recalled 267 million prefilled saline syringes after finding that the plunger may pull back and introduce air into the syringe, which can cause serious adverse outcomes. Another recall, issued by the manufacturing giant, Pfizer, involved the company pulling several batches of its smoking cessation drug Chantix off the shelves after finding some pills contain elevated levels of a likely carcinogen.

Maryland Product Liability Claims Involving Medical Devices

October 28, 2019 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Many people’s lives are saved by state-of-the-art medical devices. Those that suffer from health conditions requiring medical devices often rely not only on their doctor’s advice, but also on the manufacturers that design and construct these devices. However, too many patients suffer injuries as a result of defects in these medical devices. When a defective product causes an injury, the manufacturer may be liable through a Maryland product liability lawsuit.

Medical devices include any accessory that medical practitioners use to diagnose and treat a disease, illness, or injury. Some common examples of medical devices are defibrillators, artificial hips, pacemakers, implants, intrauterine devices, vaginal mesh, and stents. Although many of these devices are designed to help patients who are suffering from severe medical conditions, they often present many dangerous side effects themselves. Maryland patients injured by these devices may hold the manufactures or other parties associated with the distribution and marketing of the mechanism responsible for their injuries.

For example, a plaintiff recently filed a product liability lawsuit against a medical device manufacturer. In this case, the manufacturer designed the sling that was implanted to treat her urinary incontinence. After the implantation, the woman suffered thinning of her urethral wall and cystitis. She argued that her injuries were because of design defects in the device and filed a lawsuit based on negligence, defective design, and failure to warn. She presented expert testimony to support her claim that the device caused her injuries. Both the trial and the appellate court held that the manufacturer could be held liable to the woman for her injuries.