Errors in the administration or prescription of medication by hospitals, physicians, or pharmacists can result in serious injury in the patient or even death. If a patient suffers a serious injury or wrongful death as a result of a health care provider’s medication error, he or she would be able to claim medical malpractice. In this blog, we’ll discuss how medication errors can result in medical malpractice.
Medication and Medical Malpractice
There are several errors that can be made in the administration and prescription of medication that are the result of medical negligence and can lead to medical malpractice. It is important to note, however, that any error on the patient’s part is not cause for malpractice. For example, if the patient did not use the medication as directed, he or she would not be able to claim malpractice. Furthermore, even if there was an error on the part of the health care provider, patient error in usage could still nullify this error. That being said, here are some of the ways in which physician, hospital, and pharmacy medication errors can result in medical malpractice
- Administering the wrong medication.
- Administering the wrong dosage.
- Mislabeling the medication, causing the patient to receive the incorrect medication.
- Failure to warn the patient of potential side effects of the medication.
- Prescribing a medication that has negative interactions with other medications the patient uses.
- Prescribing a medication to which the patient is allergic.
As far as liability for the medication error, this depends on a number of different factors and can be difficult to determine. This difficulty is compounded in cases where the medication error resulted in the death of the patient, and medical records and testimony must be slowly pieced together. The following situation is a good example of how finding fault in these cases is not always straightforward.