Blunders With Prescribed Drugs
Posted by seo Medicines and other pharmaceuticals can be hugely effective if prescribed and used in the correct way. However, if a medicine is prescribed improperly or maybe a dosage error happens, the effects for the sufferer can be considerable perhaps even lethal. Physicians, pharmacists, and nursing staff might be held responsible for medical malpractice involving prescription medication errors, which happens all too often.
More than 1.5 million people in America are sickened, injured or killed per year by errors in prescribing, dispensing and using medications, the Institute of Medicine determined in a major document released in 2006. A worrying report by a panel of industry professionals determined that mistakes in giving prescription drugs tend to be so common in hospitals that, typically, a patient could experience a medication mistake each day that person is in a hospital bed! A number of these medication errors could be prevented if physicians put into practice electronic prescribing or if hospitals had a standardized bar-code system for checking and dispensing drugs, the report said.
Typical errors include physicians writing prescription medications that will interact dangerously with other medications a patient is taking, nursing staff adding the wrong drugs — or an incorrect dose — in an intravenous drip and pharmacists dispensing 100-milligram pills rather than the prescribed 50-milligram dose. According to previous studies, the panel thought that medication mistakes lead to at least 400,000 preventable injuries and deaths in hospitals every year, over 800,000 in nursing homes and facilities for the elderly, and 530,000 among Medicare recipients cared for in outpatient clinics. The report said the exact figures are probably much higher.
Medical professionals have an obligation to ensure that the medications they order for their patients are suitable and are also given correctly. Likewise, hospitals, via their nursing employees, have a responsibility to ensure medicines are suitable and given as ordered by the physician. Furthermore, pharmacists and pharmacy employees are responsible for making sure that prescription drugs ordered do not conflict with other prescription drugs an individual may be receiving and for filling prescriptions correctly. However, these duties are regularly neglected and serious errors occur in prescribing and giving medicines to patients.
If you or someone you know has been injured by a prescription medication error, call a good injury law firm in Georgia for a consultation. Search for law firms who have experience representing victims of medication errors, and also have access to professional consultants who are able to help in evaluating your case.
Contact Augusta Personal Injury Law Firms today if you have been hurt by Medical Malpractice.
A Medical Malpractice Law Firm in Augusta may be able to help get you the compensation that’s rightfully yours.
