Medication Error Lawyer
Medication errors including wrong drug, wrong dose, or wrong patient are serious forms of medical negligence that can cause permanent injury or death.
Medication Errors as Medical Malpractice
Medication errors occur when healthcare providers prescribe, dispense, or administer the wrong medication, wrong dose, wrong route, or wrong timing. Medication errors affect approximately 1.5 million Americans annually and can cause serious injury or death.
Medication errors can occur at any stage: prescription, transcription, dispensing, or administration.
Types of Medication Errors
Common medication errors include: prescribing the wrong medication (e.g., prescribing a drug similar-sounding to the intended drug), prescribing wrong doses (too high or too low), prescribing drugs to patients with known allergies, and prescribing drug combinations that interact.
Administration errors include giving medication to the wrong patient, giving wrong dose, giving medication by wrong route (IV instead of oral), and missing doses.
High-Risk Medications
Certain medications carry higher risk if dosed incorrectly including anticoagulants, insulin, chemotherapy, cardiac medications, and antibiotics. Errors with these medications can cause serious harm.
Healthcare providers must use extra caution with high-risk drugs and verify doses carefully.
Consequences of Medication Errors
Medication errors can cause serious injuries including allergic reactions, drug toxicity, organ damage, hospitalization, and death. Some medication errors cause permanent injury requiring lifelong care.
Common serious consequences include kidney damage from overdosed antibiotics, bleeding from anticoagulant errors, and cardiac complications from cardiac medication errors.
Who May Qualify for a Claim
Patients who suffered injury from medication errors may have viable claims. The medication error must have caused the injury. Some medication errors are negligence per se (automatically negligent) because they violate clear standards.
To evaluate your case, we need medication records, medical records documenting the error and injury, and evidence linking the error to harm.
The information on this page is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this page or submitting a contact form.