Errors in local pharmacies

CVS Pharmacy Mixes Up Prescription, Man Sent to Hospital

December 15, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier last month in Oklahoma City, a man was admitted to the hospital after taking another person’s medication that he was given at a local CVS Pharmacy. According to a report by one local news source, the man had just gotten his wisdom teeth taken out and was prescribed antibiotics and a strong dose of Ibuprofen. However, when he went to get the prescription filled, he was given someone else’s medication.

Evidently, after taking the wrong medicine for a couple days, the man’s wife noticed that he was acting different. He was sick and acting as though he was drunk each time he took the medication. As it turns out, he was taking anti-depression medication that was prescribed to another customer. He took a hefty dose of 300 mg, which was the prescribed dose of the ibuprofen he thought he was taking.

After he was admitted to the hospital, doctors determined that he would be fine. However, he was suffering from heart palpitations and extremely high blood pressure for those few days when he was taking the medication. A CVS representative told reporters that they have “comprehensive policies and procedures in place to ensure prescription safety and errors are a very rare occurrence,” and offered to pay for all the medical expenses the man incurred.

Medication Error Responsible for 65-Year-Old Woman’s Death

December 8, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier this month in Bend, Oregon, a 65-year-old woman died as a result of a medication mix-up that occurred at a local hospital. According to a report by one local news source, the woman was admitted to the hospital for a brain surgery a few days prior and came back to the hospital with a dosage question regarding her anti-seizure medication.

Evidently, instead of providing the woman with her anti-seizure medication, the hospital pharmacy provided her with a powerful paralyzing agent that is usually reserved for surgeries. The woman stopped breathing shortly after taking the medication and went into cardiac arrest. The hospital took her off life support a short time later, and she was pronounced dead.

In official statements, the hospital has admitted that the incident was its fault, but it is still conducting an investigation into how exactly the fatal medication mix-up occurred. The woman’s family described their reaction as “pure anger” when they found out that their loved one died as a result of a preventable mistake. At the time of the article’s publication, the family was not sure if they are going to pursue legal action against the hospital.

Pharmacy Error Leads to Elderly Woman’s Death

November 24, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier this month in Glendale, California, a 90-year-old woman died after she was given a dosage that was 10 times higher than that which was prescribed by her physician. According to a report by CBS Los Angeles, the woman was prescribed a generic version of diltiazem, a medication for atrial fibrillation—an arrhythmia of the heart—by her physician.

However, when she took the prescription to get filled at a local pharmacy, the pharmacist who filled the prescription didn’t fill it properly. Instead of taking 30 mg, four times a day, the pharmacist provided her with instructions to take 300 mg four times a day. This resulted in the elderly woman taking 10 times the prescribed dose of the medication.

After a couple days of taking the high dose, the woman became unresponsive. She was taken to the hospital where she stayed for two weeks before she died. It was the day after her 90th birthday. The cause of death was listed by the medical examiner as “diltiazem intoxication due to pharmacy error.”

Elderly Woman Dies After Being Prescribed Three Times Her Actual Dose

November 17, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier this month in the United Kingdom, an 85-year-old woman died when she took medication that was given to her by her pharmacist that was three times her normal dose. According to a report by one local news source, the woman was prescribed a 25 mg dose of a common anti-depressant medication. However, her local pharmacist admitted to giving her a box of 75 mg pills with a label on the package indicating it contained 25 mg pills.

Evidently, the elderly woman had been taking the same medication without incident since 1984. However, after taking the increased dose of medication for one month, the woman’s family began to notice that their loved one was confused and forgetful. In fact, one of her family members told reporters that they thought she was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Not long after she began taking the triple dose of medication, the woman suffered a serious fall that caused her to break six ribs, puncture her lung, and caused her internal bleeding. About 10 days after the fall, she died as a result of the injuries she sustained.

Firefighter Given Adderall Instead of Anti-Inflammatory Drug

November 10, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier last week in Tennessee, a firefighter went to pick up a prescription for an anti-inflammatory medication for shoulder pain and was instead provided Adderall, a medication used to treat the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder. According to one local news report, the firefighter immediately noticed that his heart started racing and he was feeling light-headed.

After a few days, he could tell something was not right with the medication. He told reporters that “I started noticing I was real jittery and even throughout the day I was just a bit jittery. I started having hallucinations, shortness of breath and I just really wasn’t feeling myself.”

He ended up calling the Walgreen’s that filled the prescription at 4:00 a.m. to ask if something was wrong with the prescription. As it turns out, he had been given another patient’s medication and had been taking 30g of Adderall twice a day for several days. The firefighter was admitted into the emergency room twice in two days and was given medication to slow down his heart rate.

Pharmacist Overprescribes Blood-Thinner, Causing Man to Cough Up Blood

October 9, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

In a frightening case earlier last month out of New Zealand, a man needed to be hospitalized after he started to cough up blood due to a pharmacist’s error. The pharmacist responsible was actually hired from a temp agency that staffs short-term employees.

According to one local news source, a 65-year-old man went to fill a prescription for warfarin, a blood-thinner and anti-coagulant used to treat blood clots. Instead of providing him the required dose of a single 1 mg pill, the pharmacist filled the prescription for five 1 mg pills.

The man took the medication as instructed and six weeks later was complaining of extreme abdominal pain and constipation. He was hospitalized when he started coughing up blood and urinating blood. The man was taken off warfarin and placed on vitamin K instead. After five days in the hospital, doctors felt that he was okay to return back home. There is no indication as to what, if any, long-term effects the man may experience as a result of the overdose.

Michigan Woman Narrowly Avoids Serious Injury After Pharmacy Error

September 22, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier this month in Portage, Michigan, one local woman caught on to an error by her pharmacist that may have saved her life. According to a report by a local news source, the woman was provided a prescription by a local Wal-Mart pharmacy that belonged to another patient not once, but twice.

Evidently, the woman takes an unknown medication daily and has her prescriptions filled at the local Wal-Mart pharmacy. However, last month she noticed that her daily pill looked a little larger than normal. She checked the label and saw that there was another patient’s name on it.

The woman did not disclose what medication she was supposed to be taking, but it is known that the prescription she was given was for a 78-year-old woman’s heart condition. There is no indication that the 78-year-old woman was provided any medication other than what she was prescribed. It’s possible she had not yet picked up her prescription.

Prescription Error Causes Man to Permanently Lose His Sight

July 16, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier this year in June, a Texas man filed a lawsuit against a CVS Pharmacy alleging that the pharmacy’s error caused him to permanently lose sight in one of his eyes. According to a report by a local news source, the man was given a prescription for eye drops to treat his pink eye back in 2012. When the man took the prescription to his local CVS Pharmacy, the prescription was filled with an ear medication with a similar name.

When the man took the medication home and put it in his eye, as the label on the box instructed, his eye became painful and irritated. Eventually, he completely lost sight in that eye. The box containing the drops clearly labeled the drug as ear medication. However, the pharmacist’s label instructed the man to apply three drops of the medication in each eye twice daily.

The man’s caregiver told reporters that the loss of his sight has caused the man’s overall condition to deteriorate rapidly, requiring that he have nearly constant supervision. Texas state law limits the man’s potential recovery amount to $250,000.

Air Force Claims Medication Errors on Base Presented Very Low Risk

May 14, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Earlier this year in April, the Air Force released a report indicating that it had prescribed the wrong medication on an Air Force base in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Evidently, on April 29th, someone reported that their prescription was not properly filled; Tylenol was prescribed instead of Robaxin, a muscle relaxer.

The Air Force immediately conducted an internal investigation and found that 1273 patients had been provided the incorrect medication at the Kitty Hawk base. Of those, the Air Force was able to contact 926 of the patients by telephone to let them know that they may have been proved the wrong medication. The remaining patients were sent a certified letter in the mail to let them know of the pharmacy’s error. Air Force records indicate that no one actually took the improperly prescribed drugs.

According to a report by the Dayton Daily News, the medication errors were due to a malfunction in an automated system that the Air Force pharmacy uses to fill prescriptions. Once the error was found, pharmacists and pharmacy techs began to fill all prescriptions by hand to ensure that patients received the correct medication.

Public University Collaborates with Private Drugstore Chain on New Model of Patient Care

March 26, 2014 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

A national pharmacy chain has partnered with a medical school and a pharmacy school to open a store that will explore a new model for patient care. The “Walgreens at UCSF” store, located on the University of California, San Francisco campus, is reportedly designed to enable extensive communication between pharmacists and patients. Substantial numbers of people in the U.S. take prescription and over-the-counter medications on a daily basis, and medication errors are a significant cause of injuries and deaths. Various hospitals and other medical facilities are trying out different models of care in an effort to reduce the number of medication errors, and the severity of the injuries they may cause, as much as possible.

The central idea behind Walgreens at UCSF, like many other experimental programs, is the importance of communication between patients, physicians, and pharmacists. Few pharmacies are designed with one-on-one pharmaceutical counseling in mind, and pharmacists tend to remain in the back of the store. The store includes a 1,200-square-foot area with numerous private consultation areas, which pharmacists can use to meet with patients. UCSF describes a concierge desk where patients can check prescriptions and set up pharmacist consultations. Pharmacists employed by both the university and Walgreens will work side-by-side. Rather than simply dispensing medications, pharmacists would work with patients to help them understand how to take medications properly, and provide them with a better overall picture of their health.

According to UCSF, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), eighty-two percent of people in the U.S. take medication on a daily basis. Twenty-nine percent take at least five medications per day. Medication errors can occur at any stage of the treatment process, with doctors making a prescription error, pharmacies dispensing the wrong medication or wrong dosage, and patients not following the directions for their medication. UCSF cites statistics from the National Consumers League stating that three-fourths of Americans do not always follow medication instructions, while about one-third do not always take prescribed medications at all. Medication errors cause as many as 1.5 million injuries, 700,000 emergency room visits, and 7,000 deaths every year, at a cost of around $3.5 billion.