Pharmacy Error Injury Lawyer Blog

Family of Pharmacy Error Victim Disappointed with Pharmacist’s Two-Month Suspension

February 1, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Prescription medications are often dangerous drugs that are subject to government regulation, due to the potential harm they can cause when taken in a manner inconsistent with their therapeutic use. While the majority of pharmacy errors do not result in serious patient injuries, the reality is that there are a significant number of errors each year that do result in serious injuries or death. Often, the pharmacists responsible for these errors are subject to professional sanctions as a result of the error. However, these sanctions often seem insignificant compared to the injury or loss suffered by the victims of pharmacists’ mistakes.

Last year, an elderly woman died as a result of taking five times the prescribed dose of an immuno-suppressant medication. According to a local news report covering the tragic death, the woman was provided the medication by a local pharmacy. Evidently, the prescription was initially incorrectly filled by a new technician. The supervising pharmacist caught the error and directed the technician to fix it. However, the technician failed to correct the mistake, and the pharmacist never double-checked the technician’s work.

Registered Nurses Too Often Fail as a Last Line of Defense Against Medication Errors

January 23, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

The results of a recently published study emphasize the crucial role that registered nurses (RNs) play in maintaining accuracy in dispensing medications to patients receiving inpatient services at a hospital. The recently performed study discusses the most common medications that are subject to error, as well as the rates of harm to patients that occur as a result of errors made by RNs. Costly errors appear to encourage doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and the medical industry as a whole to issue guidelines in the hope of preventing errors. However, whatever harm these errors cause to the medical professionals who make them, the harm caused to innocent patients is significantly worse.

The Study Confirms the High Rates of Inpatient Errors Committed by RNs

An article in an industry news source (login required) discusses the recent study mentioned above. The study found that the majority of medication errors occurred in the medical-surgical units of the hospitals where they were conducted, followed by the intensive care units and intermediate care units.

Anticoagulant drugs were the most common type of medication to be associated with a medication error, and 10% of the total errors ultimately resulted in harm to a patient. Although 10% sounds like a low number, that still adds up to hundreds of thousands of patients each year who receive some type of medication error and thousands who suffer harm as a result.

Pharmacy Error Lawsuit Dismissed Because Plaintiff Names Wrong Defendant

January 16, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

The Supreme Court of Alabama recently released an opinion granting the appellant’s request for the state’s high court to intervene in the case and compel the trial judge to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim as time-barred. The statute of limitations for the plaintiff’s claim had expired shortly before the defendant’s motion was filed, and the motion was ultimately granted because the plaintiff had originally sued the wrong entity after an oversight was made. After the error was discovered, the complaint was not amended to include the proper defendant until after the limitations period had expired. Since the court found that the requirements for an amended complaint to “relate back” to an original filing and toll the statute of limitations were not met, the plaintiff will be unable to recover damages for his pharmacy error claim.

The Plaintiff Alleges That a Dangerous Mistake Was Made

The plaintiff in the case of Ex Rel VEL, LLC is a former customer of a pharmacy owned and operated by the defendant. In the events leading to the filing of the lawsuit, the plaintiff was allegedly given an antipsychotic medicine, Risperidone, instead of his blood-pressure medicine, Ropinirole. After taking the wrong pills for four days, the plaintiff allegedly experienced an adverse health event and was hospitalized, at which point the error was ultimately discovered. Claiming that he suffered permanent and serious harm as a result of the mistake, he pursued a pharmacy error claim against the pharmacy that made the mistake.

Most Common Pharmacy Error of 2016 Was a Pharmacist’s Dispensing of the Incorrect Drug

January 9, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has released a report that discusses the most common pharmacy errors of 2016 and strategies to prevent these errors from harming patients in the future. The ISMP is an industry trade association containing pharmaceutical companies, doctors, pharmacists, and other medical professionals that regularly conducts observations and releases data related to prescription errors and the dangers these errors present to patients. According to the report, the most common type of pharmacy error committed in 2016 was dispensing the wrong medication to a patient, although other dangerous errors, including dosage and patient mix-ups, also ranked high on the list.

The Classes of Drugs Most Affected by Medication Errors

The ISMP study concluded that certain classes of drugs are more commonly associated with medication errors than others. According to a recent report discussing the results of the study, medication errors are most commonly associated with opioid narcotics, antibiotics, antipsychotics, and insulins.

More errors are committed in dispensing the correct dosage of opioid narcotic medicines than any other type of medicine. This is in large part due to the significant variance in tolerance and dosage from patient to patient. For example, a dose that is appropriate for one patient could cause an overdose in another, and pharmacists must ensure that they have the correct prescription information when filling these prescriptions. If something looks wrong, the pharmacist should contact the patient’s doctor directly rather than fill the prescription and provide it to the patient.

New Study Shows that Many Pharmacies Fail to Detect Clearly Dangerous Drug Combinations When Filling Prescriptions

January 2, 2017 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A recently published news report details an extensive study that was performed by the Chicago Tribune last year to evaluate and compare pharmacies’ ability to detect dangerous drug combinations being prescribed to the same patient and filled at the same time. The study involved researchers visiting over 250 Chicago-area pharmacies and filling five various prescriptions, including one “dangerous combination” of drugs. The researchers intentionally chose combinations of drugs that could cause a serious illness or death if taken together and that should not have been dispensed together.

Over Half of Pharmacies Missed the Deadly Combinations

Considering their decision to undertake such a large study, the researchers probably expected that a significant number of pharmacies would overlook the dangerous interactions and dispense the selected combinations to the undercover patient. However, the final results were stunning. Over half of the prescriptions containing deadly combinations with instructions for concurrent use were filled by the pharmacist with no discussion or objection.

There are measures in place and mandatory safety checks to prevent these dangerous drugs from being dispensed together, but the pressure to perform quickly discourages pharmacists from taking important safety measures.

Woman Dies After Inexplicably Receiving IV Containing Deadly Dose of Paralytic Medication as a Result of Pharmacy Error

December 22, 2016 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Most deadly pharmacy errors can be traced to a mistake that may not be justifiable or excusable but is at least understandable. Errors such as dosage mistakes that result from a misplaced or removed decimal point, problems in which a patient receives the wrong medication because of a similarly named medication, or patients get mixed up by a pharmacy employee can usually be explained. Because of the serious, sometimes deadly consequences of prescription and pharmacy errors, the victims of these mistakes should be entitled to compensation if they or their loved one is injured, disabled, impaired, or killed as a result of a medical professional’s mistake.

65-Year-Old Woman Receives Paralytic Agent Instead of Anti-Seizure Medication

The unfortunate case of an Oregon woman who died after receiving an intravenous dose of a dangerous medication from an inpatient hospital in 2014 demonstrates that some pharmacy errors and prescription mistakes defy all logical explanation and simply cannot be reasonably explained. In this tragic instance, a woman who was physically healthy when she checked herself into a hospital for symptoms of anxiety was dead two days later after receiving a medication that she had not been prescribed and that should not have been administered to any patient in the dose that she received.

According to a local news report, law enforcement authorities have recently announced that they will not pursue criminal charges against the medical professional who prepared the IV containing the paralytic agent rocuronium instead of the anti-seizure medication, fosphenytoin, that the woman’s physician had ordered. Authorities announced that it would not be in the interest of justice to prosecute the wrongdoer, while implying that they did have sufficient evidence for a conviction in the tragic death.

Grandmother’s Death Resulting from Pharmacist’s Error Highlights Dangers of Overworked Pharmacists

December 15, 2016 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

While doctors prescribe medication to patients, they have to rely on pharmacists to fill the prescriptions correctly, and when pharmacists are overworked, errors increase—putting patients at greater risk.

There are a number of work conditions that may cause an increase in errors. For example, many pharmacists are required to fill a high number of prescriptions every hour. Some pharmacists claim they have too many prescriptions to fill in one shift in addition to receiving orders, talking to insurers, and counseling patients. A senior pharmacist interviewed for a recent report explained that some pharmacists are required to fill over 30 prescriptions an hour, which equates to two minutes per prescription. On top of that, pharmacists must also check for potential drug interactions for each prescription and counsel patients who have questions about their prescribed medications.

One study published in the American Journal of Health-Systems Pharmacy showed that overworked pharmacists lead to an increase in prescription errors. The study looked at prescription errors in a large hospital pharmacy and found the number of errors increased with the number of orders a pharmacist filled in one shift. Other pharmacists complain that they are required to fill general customer service duties in stores in addition to fulfilling their duties as pharmacists.

Prescription Errors Persist as More Clinicians Use Electronic Health Records Systems

December 8, 2016 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Technological advances in medicine over the past 50 years have greatly benefited patients through the use of emerging treatments and technology-assisted procedures that allow doctors and other medical providers to provide better care to their patients faster and at a lower cost. As many parts of the medical field have rapidly progressed through the information age, certain areas of the profession continue to lag behind other industries, and this arguably prevents doctors and other medical professionals from giving their patients the best treatment possible. Medical record-keeping practices serve as an example of how the profession has not quite caught up with the rest of society, and patients can be harmed as a result.

Many Doctors Still Use the Color-Coded Charts for Patients’ Medical History

A patient’s medical history contains some of the most important information that doctors need to know before diagnosing and treating a condition or prescribing medication. The patient’s “chart” provides a place for this important information to be recorded, and it has often consisted of an actual paper chart that is physically stored for each patient at a doctor’s office (often in some sort of color-coded folder that is stored behind the receptionist). Although this system has generally worked for the last 100 years that it has been in use, it is an obsolete relic of an older time that is due for replacement.

Victims of Dangerous Pharmacy Mistakes Shouldn’t Feel Guilty about Filing a Claim

December 1, 2016 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

It is common for the victims of prescription mistakes and other potentially dangerous medical errors to feel sympathy for medical professionals who made a mistake that could form the basis for a lawsuit. In fact, some victims decide not to report an error or make a claim because they feel guilty revealing a potentially career-ending mistake that was innocently made by a pharmacist or another medical professional.

Although this feeling is understandable, the victims of pharmacy errors should not feel guilty about bringing claims seeking damages to which they are entitled. In fact, pharmacy error claims ultimately benefit not only the retail pharmaceutical industry and pharmacists as a whole, but also the American people by helping form a professional and respected occupation that is responsible for the health and lives of our citizens.

Pharmacy Industry Report Discusses the Motivation Within the Industry that is Caused by Error Claims

An article recently published by a pharmaceutical industry magazine attempts to show the issue of pharmacy errors from a pharmacist’s perspective. In the report, one pharmacist is spotlighted, and he discusses the effect that pharmacy errors have had on his career. Referring to the errors as “inevitable” in the careers of pharmacists, the article demonstrates the idea that pharmacy error claims and lawsuits, and more specifically the desire to avoid them, provide a great deal of motivation to those in the pharmaceutical industry and may actually improve the overall quality of care by incentivizing accuracy when dispensing prescription medications.

Some Pharmacy Errors Caused by Small Print on Medication Bottles and Other Medical Literature

November 29, 2016 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A recently published medical industry report attempts to point out the surprising threat that American patients face every day in doctor’s offices and hospitals due to the small print that is used on many prescription forms, medication bottles, and medical review materials. The report, which was supplied to the publisher by a company seeking to profit from the present-day problem, notes that a survey of health care professionals performed in 2014-2015 found that almost 90% of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals reported difficulty reading the small print found on drug labels and that over 35% were aware of a close call or actual prescription error that occurred because of the small print on some medical materials.

Doctors Who Don’t Need Reading Glasses or Assistance From a Colleague with Adequate Vision May Make Mistakes and then Blame the Small Print

The report contains startling information that millions of patients may be placed at risk every day because doctors and nurses are unable to read medication bottles correctly, and some of these professionals apparently do not take the initiative to ensure that their eyes are functioning well enough to protect their patients from a pharmacy or medical error stemming from a piece of medical literature that is read incorrectly. The article seems to place the blame for these errors and any injuries, illnesses, or deaths they cause upon the small print that is used on medication bottles. However, the bottom line is that medical professionals are responsible for reading what is on medication bottles and other literature before they give a potentially dangerous medication to a patient.

If a medical professional is unable to read a piece of text and does not seek assistance by consulting a colleague, putting on some glasses, using an app on their smartphone, or using a piece of magnification equipment to ensure that they understand what they are doing, they should be held responsible for any injuries that are caused by their mistake.