If a doctor prescribes the wrong drug or dosage, or fails to note serious drug allergies, the consequences can be severe. Pharmacists also owe a duty of care to fill prescriptions with the correct medications.
What are medication errors?
Medication errors and malpractice occur when you don’t get the right kind of care through your medicine. That can involve not getting the right medication in the first place, getting the wrong medication, getting an untimely or inadequate dose, or not being warned of harmful side effects or extra precautions. A number of different people, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and administrators—plus the medical systems that employ them—can have a hand in a medication error.
Unfortunately, medication error is pretty common, and it’s one of the top ten reasons for medical malpractice cases in the U.S. There’s a roughly 5 percent error rate in inpatient care. One estimate says medication errors cause 1 of 131 outpatient and 1 of 854 inpatient deaths each year, in addition to billions of extra costs to the healthcare system.
For a legal consultation with a medication error lawyer serving Minneapolis, call 612-349-2729
What causes medication error?
Medication error and malpractice is a complex and wide-ranging issue. Caregivers have access to around 10,000 different medications to prescribe, and nearly a third of U.S. adults take five or more medications, so there are numerous different combinations and treatments to consider—or potentially misapply.
Medication error happens on two levels:
Individual level
Some errors are the fault of an individual doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or administrator. Common reasons for errors include:
- Selecting the wrong drug
- Failing to consider a patient’s health, age, pre-existing conditions, or other factors that affect treatment and dosage
- Being distracted or writing prescriptions in a rush
- Mixing up medicine names
- Bad handwriting
- Language barriers
- Unclear or missing instructions to the patient
- Failing to account for how drugs will interact with each other
- Failing to monitor vital signs, such as kidney function, when medication is under way
- Failing to follow safe drug protocols, such as overprescribing opioids
Big-picture level
Other errors are less the fault of an individual, and involve how a hospital, clinic, or healthcare system itself is run. They include:
- Poor training or prescription protocols
- Staffing issues
- Overworked doctors
- Inadequate or unclear record keeping
- Failure to keep treatment and medication consistent amid shift changes, new prescriptions, new staff being involved, etc.
- Missing or improper equipment to deliver medication
- Administrative errors, such as assigning prescriptions to the wrong patient
- Lack of a culture of safety/conservative proscribing
Minneapolis Medication Error Lawyer Near Me 612-349-2729
What sorts of problems can medication error cause?
Because of the huge variety of conditions, medicines, and treatments, errors can range from being totally harmless to being fatal. An error that delivers your medicine wrong can cause physical and psychological harm that’s not your fault.
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How long do I have to bring a lawsuit for medication error malpractice in Minnesota?
Under Minnesota law, you usually have 4 years to bring a malpractice case against your doctor or hospital.
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What relief can I get out of a medication error suit?
Medication error robs you of your health and peace of mind, and a medical malpractice suit can help take back some of what you’ve lost. There are no caps on damages in Minnesota, and you are eligible to recover resources which help you meet a number of challenges, including:
- Medical bills and costs
- Lost income
- Past bodily and mental harm, including:
- Pain
- Disability
- Disfigurement
- Embarrassment
- Emotional distress
- Future bodily and mental harm, including:
- Pain
- Disability
- Disfigurement
- Embarrassment
- Emotional distress
Minnesota medical malpractice lawyers help people with medication error complications.
It can be confusing, painful, and time-consuming to sort out what went wrong, but you don’t have to do it alone. If you call us, we may be able to use our network of lawyers and medical experts to review your records and help get you the relief you need, including compensation for medical bills, future treatment, lost income, and pain and suffering.
You’ve already been let down once, which is why we operate under a contingency fee structure for maximum fairness: we only receive payment if we help you get what you deserve, either a settlement or victory at trial.
Get in touch with us here if you’re ready to have allies who understand.
Call 612-349-2729 or complete a Case Evaluation form
