Medical Malpractice: Prescription Misfills

Prescription misfills and errors injure approximately 1.5 million people in the United States each year, according to the Institute of Medicine. A majority of these injuries can be attributed to human error made by pharmacists when filling a prescription with the wrong medication or incorrect dosage. You would never think that a routine trip to the pharmacy could end up in an injury or even death. When a prescription is filled incorrectly, however, that’s exactly what may end up happening. If you or someone you love has been injured due to a prescription misfill, contact a Waukegan medical malpractice attorney immediately to preserve your rights to damages to which you may be entitled.

Common Pharmacy Errors

Even the smallest deviation from the correct prescription can cause injury or death. If you or someone you know has been injured due to another’s negligence, contact a Lake County medical malpractice lawyer today. Common pharmaceutical errors include:

•       Dispensing the wrong medication;
•       Providing the wrong medication dosage;
•       Failure to provide adequate instructions for the proper use of a prescription drug;
•       Failure to warn about the adverse, or potentially adverse, side-effects of a drug; and
•       Incorrectly labeling a medication.

The Risk is Real

An estimated 82 percent of Americans take at least one prescription drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty-nine percent of Americans take at least five medications. With millions of Americans using prescription medications on a daily basis, the chances of picking up an incorrect dosage, incorrect medication or inadequate instruction at the local pharmacy is not unlikely. Indeed, even celebrity Dennis Quaid is not immune from this issue.

Among pharmacists, errors believed to contribute to prescription misfills include fatigue, overwork due to short staff, high prescription volume, interruptions, similar or confusing drug names or appearance, poor handwriting on prescriptions and insufficient time to consult with the patient. Unfortunately, most prescription misfill mistakes are preventable.

The Food and Drug Administration has taken an active role, working with manufacturers to reduce errors including enacting more stringent bar coding requirements on certain drugs and biological product labels, improved reporting mechanisms and error tracking, and standardized drug label facts for over-the-counter medications.

Lake and McHenry County Medical Malpractice Attorneys

Medical malpractice law is complex. As such, a skilled professional in the field is needed in order to be the best advocate for your case. Contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney today for an initial consultation. If you have been injured due to the negligence or wrongdoing of another, a skilled and experienced attorney at The Law Offices of Robert T. Edens, P.C. can guide you through the entire process and obtain monetary damages to which you may be entitled.