In day-to-day life, when someone admits to doing something wrong, they normally acknowledge that they are responsible for the consequences. However, in pharmacy error cases, that is not always the case. In fact, it is not uncommon for a pharmacist to acknowledge that a prescription mistake was made and then…
Earlier this month, the mother of a four-year-old epileptic girl went to fill her daughter’s prescription and was given the medication. According to a local news source covering the incident, the young girl takes two prescriptions for her condition, one of which is Clobazam and anti-epileptic. The girl’s doctor prescribed…
Prescriptions errors can occur in a number of ways. Perhaps the most commonly seen prescription error, however, is when a pharmacist provides one patient’s properly filled prescription to another patient. The patient who receives the incorrect medication risks having an adverse reaction to the unprescribed pills and also risks an exacerbation…
In October of last year, the parents of a young boy who suffers from a serious kidney condition discovered that the medication they had been giving their son on a daily basis was not the correct medication that had been prescribed by the boy’s doctor. According to a recent article…
Prescription medications are often dangerous drugs that are subject to government regulation, due to the potential harm they can cause when taken in a manner inconsistent with their therapeutic use. While the majority of pharmacy errors do not result in serious patient injuries, the reality is that there are a…
The results of a recently published study emphasize the crucial role that registered nurses (RNs) play in maintaining accuracy in dispensing medications to patients receiving inpatient services at a hospital. The recently performed study discusses the most common medications that are subject to error, as well as the rates of…
The Supreme Court of Alabama recently released an opinion granting the appellant’s request for the state’s high court to intervene in the case and compel the trial judge to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim as time-barred. The statute of limitations for the plaintiff’s claim had expired shortly before the defendant’s motion…
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has released a report that discusses the most common pharmacy errors of 2016 and strategies to prevent these errors from harming patients in the future. The ISMP is an industry trade association containing pharmaceutical companies, doctors, pharmacists, and other medical professionals that regularly conducts observations…
A recently published news report details an extensive study that was performed by the Chicago Tribune last year to evaluate and compare pharmacies’ ability to detect dangerous drug combinations being prescribed to the same patient and filled at the same time. The study involved researchers visiting over 250 Chicago-area pharmacies…
Most deadly pharmacy errors can be traced to a mistake that may not be justifiable or excusable but is at least understandable. Errors such as dosage mistakes that result from a misplaced or removed decimal point, problems in which a patient receives the wrong medication because of a similarly named…