According to statistics, nearly one-third of the adult population in the United States takes five or more medications. Adverse drug events (ADEs) account for nearly 700,000 visits to hospital emergency departments (EDs) and 100,000 hospitalizations each year.
According to statistics, nearly one-third of the adult population in the United States takes five or more medications. Adverse drug events (ADEs) account for nearly 700,000 visits to hospital emergency departments (EDs) and 100,000 hospitalizations each year.
Nearly 5% of all hospital patients are affected by ADEs, making them one of the most common types of medical errors in inpatient settings. Medication errors cause injury to roughly 1.3 million people every year in the US.
Getting a prescription filed is a simple task – you take a piece of paper with the medication name and dosage on it from your doctor, and then you go to the pharmacy where a trained professional give you the pills in a bottle. These professionals are supposed to have the training and expertise to give you the right amount of medication and with the right labels.
But what happens if the pharmacy makes a mistake? You may suffer serious illness or injury as a result of a pharmacist’s mix-up. In some cases, getting the wrong medication or the wrong dosage could end in a fatality, and the saddest part is that many pharmacy errors are preventable.
Common Types of Pharmacy Errors
Errors that involve prescription drugs are a common form of medical malpractice which affects millions of people in the US each year. Pharmacy errors can be in any one of these forms:
- Dispensing the wrong medication – This error is when the pharmacist gives you a different medication than the one prescribed by your doctor.
- Dispensing the wrong dose – This is when you are given the wrong dose of the medication. If you are given a dose that is too small, it could make your condition or worse, causing you to seek additional treatment. A dosage that is too could cause adverse side effects and require you to get treatment.
- Mislabeling the medication – The pharmacist may put the correct medication in the bottle, but may apply the wrong label. When this happens, the correct instructions for taking the medication will be missing and it could cause serious side effects that affect your health.
- Dispensing unsafe medication – This may involve giving you expired medication that are no longer effective. This could make your condition worse. It could also involve giving you a medication that the pharmacist should know may cause you to have an adverse reaction to it.
Pharmacy errors can have devastating consequences on a patient’s health and life. It can result in causing the patient’s underlying condition to become worse as well as adverse reactions, allergic reactions, and dangerous drug interactions.
Winning is Everything
If you or a loved has been injured or harmed due to a pharmacy error, you should immediately seek the help of a qualified and experienced medical malpractice attorney at Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff, & Wolff of RMFW Law at 212-344-1000. You can discuss the steps to file a medical malpractice lawsuit with us. The first consultation is free.
Is your case viable? Do you have a case? What is your side of the story? We know how to win cases. We do this all the time. These cases are not easy to win, you need legal help. We have been around the block before, let’s develop a winning game plan for you but we first need to hear what happened.
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