Wrongful Death

A Pharmacy’s Guide to Medication Therapy Management

January 6, 2011 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In a recent blog, our pharmacy misfill error injury attorneys in Baltimore, Maryland discussed the importance of medication therapy management (MTM) check-ups with a pharmacist, to avoid medication error, pharmacy misfill, and potentially dangerous drug mix-ups that can lead to patient injury or even wrongful death.

The goal of an MTM is to get the maximum benefit from a patient’s prescription medication, and to have the opportunity to ask the pharmacist questions, as one would talk with their doctor, to avoid any medication error, possible side effects or problems with single or multiple medications.

People who reportedly benefit from consulting a pharmacist about medication management are:

• Patients taking medication for more than one chronic condition such as diabetes, depression, asthma, or high blood pressure.
• Patients who are taking one drug with potentially risky side effects, such as the blood thinner warfarin, or medication for seizures.

• Patients who have a hard time following a medication schedule, who forget to take their medicine, or skip them because they are experiencing side effects.

When attending an MTM, Family members or care givers are recommended to join the patient, and patients are advised to bring all medication with them, and if diabetic, their blood-glucose meter along as well. An MTM meeting is recommended once a year, unless the patient is prescribed a new medication and experiencing troubling side effects, a possible medication error, or if the patient is having monthly scheduled meetings the pharmacist.

Man Died from Overdose of Fentanyl—Widow Sues Center for Medication Error

January 4, 2011 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Last year, our Baltimore medication error attorneys reported on two cases involving alleged overdoses of the powerful pain medication Fentanyl—one blog discussed a wrongful death lawsuit, where an 68-year-old died after allegedly receiving an incorrect dosage of the potent pain killer, and another blog discussed an overdose of duragesic pain patches, where a care center staff reportedly failed to follow the doctor’s prescription and wait 72 hours before increasing the pain dosage, which also led to a fatal overdose.

In recent news, the widow of a man from Illinois is suing a local pain treatment center for the wrongful death of her husband, due to a medication error of Fentanyl, administered through a SynchroMedII pump. According to Sue Daniels, her husband Tony was admitted in December 2009 to the Piasa Pain Center and was given an incorrect dosage of Fentanyl, which caused him to overdose from the medication error and led to his death. When Daniels became unresponsive from the overdose, he was transferred to Alton Memorial Hospital. Sue claims that the Fentanyl injections caused him to suffer from severe brain damage and lung injuries. He died two years later.

Sue Daniels accuses the pain center of negligence for administering the lethal dosage of pain medication, and blames the managers of the pain center for failure to properly train the medical staff on how to use the equipment. Alton hospital is also named in the suit for not treating Daniels fast enough after the overdose, and for running the Piasa Pain clinic that reportedly administered prescription drug error. Medtronic is also listed as a defendant for manufacturing a pain pump that is allegedly defective.

Sue Daniels is asking for over $500,000 in damages for medical bills, court costs, pain and suffering.

The opioid fentanyl is a narcotic used for patients who are opioid-tolerant from using another potent narcotic pain medication for a week or more. The opioid-tolerant patients are often prescribed Fentanyl when they need an even stronger narcotic for strong pain relief. Fentanyl is only recommended for patients who are opioid-tolerant, as even the lowest strength fentanyl patch has the ability to cause severe side effects, and even wrongful death, according to the FDA. The FDA does not recommend fentanyl patch usage with patients who are not opioid-tolerant—as the warning stated in 2007.

Medication Therapy Management and the Prevention of Medication Error

December 28, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

According to the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), medication-related events are a massive problem to this country’s public health and well being. As our Baltimore medication error injury attorneys have reported in a related blog, according to the APhA, 1.5 million people are injured by medication errors every year, that cost around $177 billion in personal injury and death, and could be preventable.

Ed Webb, associate executive director of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, recently stated that prescribed medication is only beneficial if taken correctly, and if medication therapy is not managed well, it can do harm. Webb, along with other experts, recommends medication checkups, known in the business as medication therapy management, or MTM.

As our Baltimore pharmacy error attorneys also discussed recently in a blog, more and more people are being encouraged to make appointments with their pharmacists as well as their doctors to discuss the medications that they take in an effort to prevent medication error, pharmacy misfill or patient injury.

Patients reportedly often end up saving money when meeting with pharmacists, by switching prescriptions to generic drugs instead of brand-name, or dropping medications that they may no longer need. Other patients are often able to eliminate medication side effects with help from a pharmacist on the best time to take the medication, possibly changing to a different drug, or avoiding a potentially dangerous mix-up of drugs, which can lead to expensive trips to urgent care or emergency rooms and result in personal injury.

Healthcare Center Sued for Wrongful Death After Man Dies from Pain Medication Overdose

December 1, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In recent news that our Washington D.C. nursing home attorneys have been following, a medication error lawsuit has been filed against a local hospital in Salt Lake City, after a patient died from receiving an alleged overdose of a potent pain medication.

According to Deseret News, Clarence Burton was admitted to Woodland Care Center on August 1, 2008, to be supervised by nurses while he underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatment at St. Mark’s Hospital. Burton was reportedly fighting bone cancer, and had been prescribed the brand name pain medication patches Duragesic, containing the strong medication fentanyl to help him deal with the pain.

The lawsuit alleges that the care center staff members made a grave medication mistake when they failed to follow the doctor’s prescription, which was to give Burton one 50-milligram pain patch every 72 hours. The manufacturer of Duragesic also advises to wait 72 hours before increasing the pain medication dosage. Instead, the staff allegedly applied three pain medication patches on Burton’s neck, and he was found a few hours later, lying the floor in complete cardiac arrest.

When Woodland was met by the emergency personnel, they were reportedly unable to revive him, and he was taken to the hospital, where he was given another drug to counteract the fentanyl overdose. Burton was later resuscitated, but according to the lawsuit, remained unresponsive, as he had sustained sepsis, renal insufficiency, and elevated liver function as a result of the alleged malpractice. Burton was taken to another care center six days later, where he died on August 9, 2008.

Children’s Hospital Launches Initiative to Prevent Medication Error

November 1, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

After two children died from medication errors at Seattle Children’s Hospital over a period of 18 months, as our Baltimore, Maryland medication error injury lawyers recently discussed in a blog, the staff of the hospital held a special ‘Zero Errors Initiative’ Patient Safety Day on Saturday, to prevent tragic medication errors like these from happening to children in the future.

According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, over 550 physicians, staff, pharmacists, and nurses convened at the hospital for special patient safety sessions, focusing on training designed to prevent future incidents of medication and pharmacy errors.

Pat Hagan, the president of Children’s Hospital reportedly stated that these tragedies and the harm that was done to these children by the hospital will never be forgotten. Hagan said this has been a profound tragedy for the families, and for the hospital staff, and that this feeling will propel the hospital to continue to find ways to prevent life-threatening medication errors from happening.

The sessions during the safety training day included topics such as strengthening the safety of verbal orders, standardizing children’s medications located on care units, prescribing, dispensing and administering medications that are high-risk, improving communication between providers when handing off patients, and patient safety training with the use of simulation.

Reporting Children’s Medication Errors Can Help in Prevention

October 1, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A recent news article reports that medication errors are among the most common mistakes made by healthcare practitioners—and also among the most under reported.

In a tragic medication error from last year, a child at Seattle Children’s Hospital died from a medication error allegedly involving Calcium chloride. The hospital reported its mistakes to the health department and has acknowledged them publicly. Calcium chloride, the medication that reportedly caused the child’s death, is listed on the Institute for Safe Medication Practices’ (ISMP) class of pharmaceuticals as one of the institute’s “high-alert” medications.

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), medical errors are one of the leading causes of death and injury in the U.S. The AHRQ reported in a recent study that rates for potential adverse drug events in hospitals were three times higher with children than adults, with an even higher rate for infants in intensive care units.

According to Dr. Allen Vaida, executive vice president of the Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), acknowledging medication errors and reporting them is the most important step toward prevention. Vaida claims that children are especially vulnerable to drug overdoses in hospitals because of calculation errors that can occur with medications. Nurses must administer the medication dosages according to a child’s body weight and other necessary factors, that can lead to medication mistakes. He claims that in situations like this, it is important to share information about the medication errors that do occur, as reporting them can prevent errors from happening in the future.

Medication Error Causes Death in Washington State Hospital

September 30, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In recent news, our Baltimore, Maryland medication error attorneys have been following the story of a recent tragedy, resulting in the death of a patient who went to the hospital for outpatient shoulder surgery, and died shortly after, due to a medication error.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Gary William Clezie went to Yakima Regional Medical & Cardiac Center in February 2009, for a simple outpatient arthroscopic shoulder surgery. A few hours after the surgery, Clezie reportedly suffered from brain damage, as a result of an alleged medication error, and died two days later, when his family agreed to remove the construction worker from life support.

After the surgery, Clezie received Dilaudid for his pain, a potent opioid drug for pain management. Clezie was given a device that allowed him to medicate as needed, by self-administering the drug. The doctor reportedly ordered that Clezie have a blood oxygen level monitoring device, that would alert the nursing staff if the oxygen in his blood dipped below a specific level—in which case the staff would alert the doctor, remove drug device from Clezie, and make sure that he was given oxygen.

But according to the Post-Intelligencer, Clezie’s blood-oxygen monitoring device was not attached to him, so when his blood oxygen level plummeted below the doctor’s defined level, his doctor was not notified, he was not removed from the drug device, and he was not given oxygen. Clezie stopped breathing and suffered severe brain damage from the error that led the misadministration of the pain medication.

Clezie’s family reportedly filed a complaint with the Department of Health’s licensing division and the Department of Health determined, as a result of the medication error, that there were grounds for a corrective action against Yakima. The Post Intelligencer claims that Clezie is one of thousands who suffer harm, personal injury, or even wrongful death from medical care in Washington hospitals every year.

Study Reviews Risk Levels Associated with Pharmacy Drug Dispensing

August 26, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

As Washington D.C. pharmacy error injury lawyers, we have been following recent study results released by the company Centice, that discuss the risk levels associated with drug dispensing processes, and the occurrence of pharmacy errors or misfills.

Centice is a company focused on the chemical verification of dispensed prescription drugs, and has recently published findings from that investigate levels of risk in the dispensing process for prescription drugs from Pharmacy Quality Assurance and Rx Verification Study.

According to the study’s research, after a single pharmacy error in the dispensing process, pharmacists can spend up to fifty hours correcting the dispensing error, or Quality Related Event (QRE).

Centice claimed that when looking at the total prescriptions filled, pharmacy error rates are very small, but when factored into dispensing many prescriptions over a period of time, given average pharmacy filling volumes, any prescription error that leaves the pharmacy can impact customer retention and the financial stability of the pharmacy, and could also lead to potential patient injury or even wrongful death.

Family Sues Hospital for Wrongful Death in Morphine Overdose

August 25, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Our Hartford pharmacy error attorneys have recently been alerted about a wrongful death lawsuit announced last week involving the incorrect administration of morphine, a topic our Maryland attorneys have been reporting on in our Maryland nursing home lawyer blog.

The lawsuit claims that Henry Peters Dyck entered the hospital in July of 2008 with a condition on his right knee called hemarthrosis, that caused pain and bleeding in the joint of his right knee. Dyck was reportedly prescribed 10 – 30 mg of morphine in a liquid form every four hours as needed.

According to the lawsuit, filed by Dyck’s family, one week later, a nurse accidentally gave Dyck a cup of liquid morphine that contained 100 mg, instead of the 10 – 30 mg he was supposed to receive. The dosage was around five times stronger than his prescription called for, and this medication error caused Dyck to go into distress from the morphine poisoning.

The staff at the hospital reportedly tried to reverse the poisoning by pumping Dyck’s stomach, inducing vomiting and flushing his bowels, but the attempts failed, causing Dyck to suffer a heart attack. Dyck died four hours after the morphine overdose.

Dyck’s family claims in the lawsuit that the staff did not give him Naloxone, a drug known to be used as a remedy to stop the lift-threatening effects of morphine. The family alleges that the hospital’s attempts in saving Dyck’s life were not effective, caused him great pain and were physically invasive—all contributing in the end to Dyck’s wrongful death.

ISMP Licenses MEDcounselor Drug Information to Prevent Medication Error

August 16, 2010 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

According to a press release that our Baltimore pharmacy error attorneys have been following, Gold Standard/Elsevier, a drug information and medication management solution developer, has licensed MEDcounselor Drug Information modules to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) for its consumer website, ConsumerMedSafety.org.

The ISMP is certified by the federal government as a non-profit safety organization of physicians, pharmacists and nurses that strive to prevent medication error and adverse drug events. ISMP offers confidentiality and legal protection for patients who submit safety and medication error reports, and claims that Gold Standard’s MEDcounselor modules are a valuable tool to help consumers become more engaged with their health care, and to make more informed medication decisions—which could prevent medication errors, and patient injuries and deaths on a worldwide basis.

The MEDcounselor modules available through ConsumerMedSafety.org include:

• Drug Information: When typing in the first three letters of the name of a drug, patients and consumers have access to medication information like side effects, important usage, and drug interactions for every prescribed prescription drug in the United States. Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, vitamins, and nutritional supplements are also included in this information.
• MEDcounselor is written to comply with all national standards for Consumer Medication Information (CMI) and is available in both Spanish and English languages to avoid medication error.
• Drug IDentifier: If capsules or tablets become separated from the original package or container, consumers will be able to identify the drugs quickly by entering the imprint or marking that usually appears in the form of numbers. Patients can also select from thirty colors and twenty-five drug tablet/capsule shape choices for identification.
• Drug Interactions: Consumers and patients will be able to access possible drug interactions between prescription drugs, OTC medication, herbal and nutritional supplements, as well as any food intake, caffeine, alcohol and tobacco products that may interfere with the drug. Drug interaction alert include severity ranking that is color-coded for ease of use, and increases the clarity for the user.