Medication Errors
I am a Virginia medical malpractice plaintiff’s attorney who represents persons injured through the negligence of doctors, hospitals, nurses, and other health care providers. Over the past eight months, as the health care reform debate has heated up, I have heard calls for “tort reform” from various legislators.
To hear them talk you would think that frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits are one of the primary reasons health care costs today are so high. They argue that if we just take away an injured person’s right to hold medical professionals accountable for their negligence, medical costs will go way down. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The costs of malpractice lawsuits represent only a miniscule part of health spending.
I have never quite understood how legislators have no trouble understanding why someone who runs a red light and causes an accident and serious injuries should be held accountable for his negligence, but, at the same time, believe that negligent health care providers should get a “free pass” when they injure or kill a person. Recently I was reminded of this conundrum when I read an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Catching Deadly Drug Mistakes.”
The article begins with the following paragraphs:
“A nurse misunderstands an abbreviation on a pharmacy order, and gives an accidental overdose of a drug that slows the heart rate, killing the patient. Intravenous fluids are administered after surgery at too-high a rate to a child, who then dies because of the error. Confusion over a drug name leads to insulin being added to infant nutrition IV solutions instead of the intended medication, heparin, an anti-clotting drug. The consequences are fatal.
Despite years of effort to make medications safer, mishaps like these still happen at an alarming rate. Medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually in the United States according to the Food and Drug Administration.”
The write-up illustrates that serious medical errors do occur and they sometimes cause catastrophic injuries and death. There is nothing “frivolous” about the incidents described above. The article also suggests that increased pressure on hospitals to reduce costs and staff in today’s economy may be contributing to a rise in medication mistakes.
What can you do to help protect yourself or your family members from a serious, perhaps fatal, drug mistake? The author of The Wall Street Journal article suggests the following:
- Ask hospital staff members and pharmacists to explain, in detail, what medications have been prescribed for you; then confirm the drugs are being administered in the proper dosages and according to the drug’s written instructions.
- When picking up medication at the pharmacy, review dosage instructions with your pharmacist. You may not know that “BID” means twice a day or “bt” means bedtime. If there is anything confusing to you about the name of the drug or why it was prescribed for you, ask the pharmacist. If he can’t help you, he can call your doctor’s office for clarification.
- Sign up for customized alerts regarding prescribed medications. Go to www.consumermedsafety.org for information about how to do this.
- Read the label on your prescription bottle carefully before you take a drug. Confusing “look-alike” drug names and packaging can lead to errors. Don’t make any assumptions about the identity of a drug based solely on the shape of the bottle or the container.
If and when you become the victim of a medication error, report the incident at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices’ website: consumermedsafety.org. You may also want to notify the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) of medication errors at www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch. Your notification may help keep others safe from a similar drug mistake.
Labels: Medical Malpractice