Prescription & Medication Drug Errors

Many times prescriptions are filled and abusive nature is not explained clearly to the drug taker. The taker may have been prescribed accidentally the wrong medicine. If negligence has occurred at the pharmacy or doctors office a sever injury may occur. There is no reason the victim should suffer more pain or financial loss from this negligence. Contact our law office if you suspect any medical negligence has happened in a severe drug reaction accident or injury.

FDA receives medication error reports on marketed human drugs (including prescription drugs, generic drugs, and over-the-counter drugs) and nonvaccine biological products and devices. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as "any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use."

The American Hospital Association lists the following as some common types of medication errors:

• Incomplete patient information (not knowing about patients' allergies, other medicines they are taking, previous diagnoses, and lab results, for example);
  
• Unavailable drug information (such as lack of up-to-date warnings);
  
• Miscommunication of drug orders, which can involve poor handwriting, confusion between drugs with similar names, misuse of zeroes and decimal points, confusion of metric and other dosing units, and inappropriate abbreviations;
  
• Lack of appropriate labeling as a drug is prepared and repackaged into smaller units; and
  environmental factors, such as lighting, heat, noise, and interruptions, that can distract health professionals from their medical tasks.
  

Drug Products Associated with Medication Errors

Medication safety information from Drug Topics FDA Safety Page

Bextra: Valdecoxib or bucindolol?
Curbing med errors involving Anzemet, Bentyl
Confusion between methylphenidate and methadone
Drug errors associated with opium tincture and paregoric
Drug errors involving Keppra and Kaletra (Posted 1/13/2004)
Fatal medication errors associated with Temodar
Generic Name Confusion
Transdermal patches: High risk for error?
Medication errors associated with serzone and seroquel
MedWatch Safety Alert for Seroquel
MedWatch Safety Alert for Serzone