Hospital Medication Mistakes
Statistics from the United States Food and Drug Administration website, www.fda.gov., report that as many as 7,000 people die each year due to medication errors; between 770.000 and 1.3 million patients are injured each year by medication errors; and nearly 1 of every 5 doses of medication given in U.S. hospitals involve medication errors. It is unclear how many of these
medication mistakes lead to wrongful death or personal injury lawsuits.
Hospital Medication Mistakes & Mis-filled Prescriptions
Hospital medication mistakes can occur for many different reasons. Like drug stores, hospitals have on-site pharmacies for their patients. Therefore, hospital pharmacies can suffer from the same profit pressures of drug store pharmacies, including understaffing, corporate policies that emphasize speed in filling prescriptions; pushing the work down to lower paid and less educated pharmacy assistants and or LPNs; and budgets that do not allow for enough employees to handle the high volume. These pressures can lead to:
- Filling the prescription with the wrong drug
- Providing the wrong dosage to the patient
Hospital Medication Mistakes
In addition to hospital pharmacy prescription errors, hospital medication errors can occur because the floor nursing staff make medication mistakes such as mis-interpreting physician handwriting, mixing up similar looking drugs, mixing up drugs with similar sounding names, mixing up drugs with similar packaging. or adding the wrong dose of medication to an IV bag.
If you have been seriously injured in a hospital due to a medication error such as receiving a mis-filled prescription or other medication mistake it is in your best interest to speak with a Florida medication error attorney to help with your case. In some cases, you may be entitled to monetary compensation for your serious injuries.
After you have incurred serious injuries from a prescription error, you need to take the time to meet with an aggressive lawyer. You will want to work with an attorney that has extensive hospital liability experience and one that possesses the vast resources you will need to build a strong case. You will also want a lawyer on your side that has a thorough understanding of pharmacology and the adverse side effects that a prescription error can have on a person’s life.
FloridaAttorney for Hospital Medication Mistakes
If you are looking for a committed, unyielding prescription error attorney in Florida, contact the Distasio Law Firm today. At Distasio Law Firm, we understand that this is a difficult time for those who have become ill as a result of a hospital's mistakes. Therefore, we will do everything we can to help you obtain maximum recovery for your serious prescription error injuries. At Distasio Law Firm you will find a compassionate lawyer that will never stop striving to provide each client with dependable and affordable legal counsel.
Contact a Florida medication error lawyer if you are suffering from an illness that resulted from a hospital medication mistake.