Medication Errors That Can Occur During Prescribing and Writing Orders

Watch our video to learn more about medication errors that can occur when writing and prescribing orders.

Learn More:

How Do Medication Errors Arise? Examples Of Medication Errors

Who Should You Call When Prescription Medications Cause Issues?

Issues That Can Arise With Prescription Medications

Video Transcript

Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:24Medication Errors While Prescribing and Writing Orders: Errors Made During Prescription Writing
1:07 Medication Errors While Prescribing and Writing Orders: Informational Videos

So we’ve outlined the medication prescription process for you. Let’s dig into the details of the process, starting with the actual order or the writing of the prescription. What could go wrong?

0:24 Medication Errors While Prescribing and Writing Orders: Errors Made During Prescription Writing

The professional who’s writing the order could write a prescription for the wrong medication. They could write a prescription for the wrong dose of the medication. They could ultimately write a prescription that indicates an inappropriate route by which the medication would be administered, instead of an injectable medication, the prescription was written for oral medication or vice versa. 

Those are just some of the examples of what can occur or what might be a problem at the stage of actually ordering or writing the prescription. 

1:07Medication Errors While Prescribing and Writing Orders: Informational Videos

Again, if you want to know a little bit more about these stages of the prescription process, we invite you to continue watching these short videos that take you through the medication process, and what some of the challenges and problems can be.

At some point, just about everyone will need to take some type of prescription medication. We rely on doctors to prescribe the correct medication, and we depend on pharmacists to fill our prescriptions correctly. Tragically, mistakes happen, resulting in about 7,000 patient deaths every year. Hundreds of thousands more are seriously injured.

If you have been injured due to a medication error, you have important rights. At LawMD, many of our lawyers are also physicians who can use their medical insight to evaluate the full extent of your injuries. Our legal team is completely committed to helping individuals and families get the compensation they deserve. Drug mistakes are almost always preventable.

Don’t let someone else’s negligence saddle you with physical, financial, and emotional burdens. Help is available.

Medication errors happen for a number of reasons and in a variety of settings, including but not limited to:

• Doctors’ offices: Doctors get busy, and they are more prone to mistakes when they are overworked and understaffed. Medication errors can also happen when doctors fail to check for drug interactions and contraindications.
• Hospitals: Drug errors often occur in hospitals, where health care workers work long hours and are often required to care for a large number of patients.
• Pharmacies: Pharmacists are also responsible for a large number of drug errors. In the world of pharmaceuticals, even a single misplaced decimal point can mean the difference between life and death.
• Nursing homes: Drug errors are a leading cause of nursing home deaths and morbidity. Sadly, many nursing homes and assisted living facilities are staffed by workers who lack the skill and experience to deliver adequate patient care. Because the elderly are often required to take prescription medications to manage chronic health problems, medication mistakes are rampant in nursing homes and other facilities.

It is absolutely critical that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians check and double-check prescriptions before patients take them home. It’s also important for doctors and nurses to clearly communicate with patients for prescribing or dispensing medication.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Medication mistakes include:

• Failing to check for drug interactions
• Prescribing or dispensing the wrong medication
• Prescribing or dispensing the wrong dosage of medication
• Giving a patient another patient’s medication
• Failing to gather a patient’s medical history or family medical history

Whether a patient is harmed by a doctor’s medication mistake or an error by the pharmacist, proving medical malpractice is frequently a challenge. It’s important for patients to work with an experienced medical malpractice team to ensure they maximize their chances of obtaining full and fair compensation for their injuries.

Medical malpractice claims are governed by a strict statute of limitations. If you have been harmed by a medication mistake, you have a short amount of time in which to file a claim. If you miss this narrow window of opportunity, you could forever miss your chance to receive compensation for your injuries.

Although taking on a doctor, hospital, or nursing home can seem daunting, speaking up for yourself could also mean giving a voice to others who have been harmed due to medication errors. Tragically, some medication mistakes happen because of bad policies in doctors’ offices and hospitals. In many cases, it takes just a single patient to stand up and bring attention to bad practices. Your case could be the one necessary to bring about an important change that saves lives and prevents others from experiencing life-threatening injuries.

Drug mix-ups and medication mistakes have become more common in recent years. As the baby boomer generation nears retirement age, a growing number of people are turning to pharmaceuticals to treat medical conditions, extend their lifespan, and improve their quality of life. Unfortunately, this has led to an increase in medication errors.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to a doctor or pharmacist’s medication-related negligence, don’t wait to seek help.

Most of our physician-attorneys are either current or past treating doctors in, collectively, a wide range of medical specialties. There is a good chance one or more of our physician attorneys have actually treated medical conditions similar to the ones from which you or your loved one now suffers. That translates into care and understanding as your Counselors, and know-how as your Advocates.

Any honest medical malpractice attorney will tell you that one of the greatest expenses in a medical malpractice case is having to pay physician experts to study the details of the medical issues in your case and, if necessary, provide testimony at deposition and trial. While even our physician attorneys may also need to hire outside medical experts for your case, our medical know-how allows us to perform a significant amount of the medical analysis necessary for your case in-house which may translate into significant savings at the conclusion of your case.

Because we have in-house medical know-how, we can evaluate the medical questions in your case and provide answers without a lengthy wait. Our internal process involves getting the issues in your case quickly in front of the right physician attorney who, based on his or her medical experience and training, is most likely to have the answers you seek about whether you have a case and how we might help you get the compensation you deserve to help secure a brighter future for you and for your loved ones.