Pharmacy Error Injury Lawyer Blog

Pharmacy Management Decisions May Place Patients at an Increased Risk of Experiencing an Error

November 15, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Pharmacy errors present a serious risk of injury not just to patients who take medication that they need to keep them healthy but also to anyone who fills a prescription. In many cases, Maryland pharmacy errors involve a patient being provided with a dangerous medication that they were not prescribed. This can result in a wide range of dangerous side effects, up to and including death.

Given the risks involved, pharmacists generally take their job very seriously and want to ensure that their patients are given exactly the medication and dosage they are prescribed. However, pharmacies are for-profit corporations that exist to make money. And by scheduling fewer pharmacists, the pharmacy is spending less in labor costs and can keep more of the money it receives.

According to a recent news report, some pharmacists have recently expressed frustration with the fact that they are pressured to fill prescriptions quickly, focusing more on filling a large number of prescriptions than making sure the prescriptions that are filled are accurate. These employees told reporters that they felt as though their employers viewed the occasional pharmacy error as a “cost of doing business.”

Experts Push to Decrease Prescription Errors by Changing Labeling and Packaging

November 8, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Prescription errors can have devastating consequences for Maryland patients. These types of errors can be caused by a number of different issues, including writing the wrong prescription and dispensing the wrong medication. Some of these errors may be reduced by changing something as simple as the packaging of the medication. Some drugs have similar names, and other bottles look alike, increasing the likelihood of error. Experts are pushing companies to make changes in cases of confusing labeling, naming, and packaging.

In a prescription error case, an individual must show that the defendant was negligent in doing or failing to do something by failing to meet the standard of care required. This might include failing to properly read the label on a medication bottle. However, industry experts are working to help medical professionals avoid such errors.

FDA Guidance Seeks to Reduce Errors Due to Labeling and Packaging

Look-alike and sound-alike medications increase the likelihood of prescription errors, according to one news source. One report found that 33 percent of all medication errors and 30 percent of deaths from medication errors resulted from issues with medication labeling and packaging.

Recent Study Indicates that Type 1 Diabetes Patients Are at Especially High Risk of Experiencing a Medication Error

November 1, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In the pharmacy world, it is well-known that diabetic patients are among those with the highest risk of being victims of Maryland medication errors. This is due mostly to the fact that diabetic patients are often required to take several medications in a very specific dose, as well as the fact that a failure to get the medication (or too large a dose of the medication) will likely result in an adverse health event.

According to a recent study, those patients who suffer from Type 1 diabetes are more likely than patients with Type 2 diabetes to experience a medication error. The study followed 671 diabetic adults who were admitted to the hospital. Researchers tracked the patients from admission until discharge and double-checked each administration of medication. As it turned out, about 30% of patients experience at least one error.

The most common type of error accounted for roughly 60% of all errors and was an error of omission. When this type of error occurs, a patient is not given the medication that they were prescribed by their physician. Other common error types were wrongly added medications and improperly administered medications.

Pharmacy Errors Involving High-Alert Medications

October 23, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

While all prescription drugs pose risks if taken in large quantities or by certain patients taking other medications, some medications have such a high likelihood of being involved in a Maryland pharmacy error that they have been labeled as “high-alert” medications. According to a recent industry news report, high-alert medications are those that have an increased probability of negative interaction when taken with another commonly prescribed drug, have serious side effects even when taken alone, or must be taken in very specific doses to ensure that the medication is effective.

While many types of medication are high-alert, some commonly seen high-alert medications in out-patient pharmacies are chemotherapy medication, pediatric solutions, insulin, and opioids. The list of high-alert medications in hospital pharmacies is similar and includes epinephrine and hypoglycemic agents. That being said, it is understood that insulin presents the highest risk of all medications, due to the various forms and doses of the drug as well as the high-risk status of many insulin patients.

The article details certain steps that pharmacies should implement when filling prescriptions for high-alert medications. For example, using system alerts whenever a pharmacist fills a high-alert medication triggers a cue for the pharmacist to provide additional counseling to the patient regarding the high-alert medication. System alerts may also be set to alert pharmacists to patients who present an especially high risk of being a victim of an error.

Pharmacy Errors Involving Visually Impaired Patients

October 16, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Most people would like to think that if they were ever given an incorrect prescription by a pharmacist, they would catch the mistake. However, statistics indicate that most people who are provided with the wrong medication, incorrect dose, or improper instructions at the pharmacy counter do not notice the error until they have taken the medication home and ingested at least one dose.

When dealing with visually impaired patients, there is a drastic reduction in the chance that the patient will notice the error. This pertains not just to those who are legally blind but also to the elderly or others with poor vision. A patient with compromised eyesight may be able to see well enough to find their way to the pharmacy counter but will likely have difficulty reading the small print on prescription bottles.

Pharmacists have a duty to fill all patients’ prescriptions accurately, and they may be held liable for any injuries that result from an error. Under the law as it pertains to pharmacy error claims, a visually impaired patient will not be expected to catch the error. That is to say that the pharmacist will not be able to argue that the patient should have caught the error in an attempt to avoid liability.

Study Shows E-Prescribing Has Decreased Pharmacy Error Rates

October 9, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In the old days, a pharmacist’s job hardly resembled what it does today. With hundreds of patients coming in to fill tens of thousands of prescriptions each month, the average pharmacist is extremely busy. This leaves them with little time to spend with each patient, and it may even result in the pharmacist rushing through important safety measures just to keep up with the workload.

The situation in hospital pharmacies is similar; with patients constantly being admitted and discharged, it can be difficult for pharmacists to keep all of the patients and medications straight. This has led hospitals across the country to rely more on technology. And it seems to be working in reducing Maryland pharmacy error rates and rates in other states.

According to a recent news article, the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and computerized prescriber-order-entry (CPOE) systems has greatly reduced the number of medication errors in hospitals nationwide. As a result, these systems have been widely adopted, with approximately 99% of hospitals using EHRs and 97% of hospitals using CPOE systems to fill at least some portions of the prescriptions filled in the hospital.

New Insulin Use Guidelines Aim to Reduce Risk of Insulin Prescription Errors

October 2, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Patients have to put a great deal of faith in their doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. We put our lives in the hands of medical providers. But medical providers can make mistakes just like anyone else. Since medication errors occur all too frequently, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists have to be vigilant in making sure that every patient is getting the right medication.

Proving Negligence in Medication Error Cases

To recover damages in a Maryland medication error case, a plaintiff must show that the defendant acted negligently. Negligence can be shown by demonstrating that the defendant was negligent in doing or failing to do something. A plaintiff must show the following elements: the defendant had a legal duty to use due care toward the plaintiff, the defendant failed to perform that duty, the plaintiff suffered damages, and the defendant’s failure to perform the required duty caused the plaintiff’s damages.

Examples of damages available to medication error victims include medical expenses, lost wages, physical therapy, and loss of earning capacity.

Five Ways Pharmacists Can Help Prevent Pharmacy Errors

September 22, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Tens of thousands of patients are provided the wrong medication, wrong dose, or wrong instructions in their prescriptions each year. These Maryland pharmacy errors can range in seriousness. On one end of the spectrum are the errors that are caught by the patient before any medication is ingested. While these errors present no risk of injury, they are still alarming.

More serious prescription errors are those that result in serious injuries or death. While there are tens of thousands of documented errors each year, approximately 7,000 of these errors are fatal. Over the past decade, the pharmacy industry has been the focus of many studies looking at how to decrease the cases of serious and fatal errors. A recent report discusses five of the most common recommendations for pharmacists to take that will decrease their error rates.

Provide enough pharmacists – One of the leading causes of pharmacy errors is that the pharmacist filling the prescription is overworked. By ensuring that there are enough pharmacist staff members on duty, pharmacies are able to keep workloads manageable and provide much-needed breaks to pharmacists.

The Risks of Pharmacy Compounding Errors in Hospitals May Be Under-Appreciated

September 15, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Maryland pharmacy errors are shockingly common and have several causes. One cause that is rarely discussed is compounding errors involving intravenous (IV) medication. The use of IV medication is very common is hospitals. Normally, a nurse comes into a patient’s room with a small bag of fluid, connects the bag to the IV in the patient’s arm, and hangs the bag up near the patient’s bed. However, patients are only seeing a small part of what goes into preparing this medication.

In reality, there are many steps that must be taken before that bag of liquid is administered to a hospital patient. According to a recent industry news source, there are a number of ways that an error can occur when a pharmacist prepares IV medication. For example, the pharmacists in the hospital’s compounding center are rarely required to conform to the same protocol, resulting in each pharmacist having their own system for creating compound medications. In a busy pharmacy environment, this can result in a pharmacist overlooking a crucial step or making some other kind of hasty error.

Of course, when dealing with serious medications, the measurements must be precise. However, too often, pharmacists are essentially “eyeballing” the correct amount of medication by using small black measurement lines on the side of a syringe. In addition, much of the process relies on hand-written notes that can be misinterpreted, resulting in an increased chance of an error.

New Report Indicates Pharmacy Errors Are Often Results of System-Wide Lapses

September 8, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Pharmacy errors are much more common than most people believe. Indeed, according to some estimates, one in 12 patients are provided the wrong medication or an incorrect dose, or are given instructions that are not correct, given the patient’s specific circumstances. While most Maryland pharmacy errors do not result in serious harm to the patient, thousands of errors each year result in hospitalization.

According to a recent article, the British Health Secretary is so concerned with the high rate of prescription errors in his country that he has vowed to conduct an in-depth investigation into the root causes of these errors and to develop remedial measures to decrease the prevalence of pharmacy errors moving forward. The article explains that of the roughly one billion prescriptions filled by pharmacies each year, approximately 80 million contain some kind of error.

Some experts attribute the high rate of errors to frequent lapses of care across the health care system, including a lack of knowledge of primary care physicians and a hasty pharmacy environment. Researchers hope that the continued development of automated pharmaceutical dispensing systems will help to decrease error rates in the future; however, these systems come with their own risks of use.