Medication Errors
What is a Medication Error?
There are a number of times when a medication error can occur, from prescribing errors to medication administration. A physician may prescribe the wrong medication, or a nurse may administer the wrong medication, resulting in a serious adverse reaction or death. A proper medication may be ordered, but with the wrong dose. A nurse may misread an order, or make a miscalculation when preparing the medication, resulting in the wrong dose being administered. Or, a nurse may fail to give a prescribed dose of necessary medication, and this omitted dose may lead to an injury. Any of these scenarios may potentially cause serious injury or death of a patient.
How common are Medication Errors?
A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine suggested that medical errors account for up to 98,000 deaths per year. The majority of these medical errors involve medication errors, which should be preventable. Studies show that medication errors are widely underreported. It is estimated that only 1-2% percent of all medication errors are actually reported.
A 2002 article from the medical journal Pharmacotherapy found 429,827 medication errors from 1081 hospitals. This means that a medication error occurred every 22 hours in these hospitals, giving a rate of one error in every 19 admissions. The report suggests that at least 90,895 patients are harmed each year by medication errors in our nation's medical-surgical hospitals. Other studies document that 3-6.9% of hospital inpatients are victims of medication errors. These preventable medication errors result in serious injury or fatality for thousands of patients each year.
The majority of medication errors occur within the patient-care system, rather than at the pharmacy level. Most often, the doctor or nurse is responsible for the inappropriate prescription or administration of the medication in question. There have been few studies in hospitals or other patient care facilities to try to determine the cause of these errors and possible solutions to this enormous problem of medication errors.
Recent studies concerning the cost of medication errors have shown that fatal adverse drug events resulting in legal judgments or settlements cost approximately $1.1 million per patient death. Adverse drug events that cause permanent disabilities resulting in legal judgments or settlements cost another $4.3 million per patient. However, only thirteen percent of adverse drug events resulted in litigation. The average settlements and judgments were $3.1 million per patient.
If you think you or a loved one has been injured by a medication error, contact us today. You can submit your case online, free of charge and with no obligation, through our Contact Form and we will promptly respond to you.
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