Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Tagged with medication error

Published on:

By

NYC Medical Malpractice Attorneys Jeff Bloom and David LarkinOur NY Medical Malpractice attorneys Jeffrey Bloom and David Larkin settled a wrongful death case for $3 Million for the death of a man overdosed with narcotics

Our client, a man in his fifties, walked into the emergency department of his local hospital with complaints of abdominal pain.  He was dead within hours.  He left behind a wife and three grown sons.

The nurse receiving the telephone order from the pain management specialist transcribed it incorrectly and raised the dose for Dilaudid to a deadly amount

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

Drive_Thru_DrugsDispensing errors occur when a pharmacy commits a medication error and patients receive a different drug, a different dosage or a different drug quantity than their doctor prescribed. Sometimes when the doctor prescribed several medications, the pharmacy might also miss one. While most patients realize when the pharmacy did not give them the proper medication, some don’t. Medication errors by pharmacies can result in more harm to a patients and even death in some cases.

As doctors, pharmacies and patients are adapting to new safety guidelines related to Covid-19, pharmacies should also create new protocols to prevent the risk of medication errors.

The increase in phone prescriptions as well as not delivering the medication at the counter but offering curbside pick-up, drive-through window, home delivery, or mailing the medication can lead to an increase in medication errors if the pharmacy doesn’t take extra safety steps to prevent them.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

pregnant.jpgTo prescribe or recommend certain types of pain medicine to a pregnant woman can be medical malpractice that can result in miscarriage, birth defects or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The FDA looked at the most recent research studies published in the medical literature on this subject and found that three types of pain medicines used during pregnancy had the following potential health risks:

  • Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can lead to miscarriage during the first half of the pregnancy
  • Opioids taken during the first trimester of pregnancy can lead to birth defects of the brain, spine or spinal cord of the baby
  • Acetaminophen taken at anytime during the pregnancy increases the risk of having a child suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Women who are in pain during their pregnancy should always talk to their doctor and carefully weight the risks and benefits before taking over the counter or prescription pain medicine.

The complete FDA Safety Announcement and more informations on the various studies can be found here

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

medication%20error.jpgMedication error in psychiatric practice can be medical malpractice. In a recent study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and funds from the Recovery Act, researchers found that patients between the age of 15 and 40 years old who suffered a first-episode psychosis were not prescribed a medication treatment complying with the recommended guidelines for their condition. According to the guidelines, patients with a first episode of psychosis should be treated differently than those with recurrent episodes.

Researchers are calling for more prescriber education after they studied 404 individuals suffering from an initial schizophrenia episode and found that 159 of them were not prescribed an appropriate treatment. Among these 159 people, 8.8 percent were prescribed higher-than-recommended doses of antipsychotics; 23.3 percent were prescribed more than one antipsychotic; 36.5 percent were prescribed an antipsychotic and an antidepressant without a clear need for the antidepressant; 10.1 percent were prescribed psychotropic medications without an antipsychotic medication; and 1.2 percent were prescribed stimulants. In addition, 32.1 percent were prescribed olanzapine, a medication not recommended for first-episode patients. Some of the 159 fell into multiple categories.

Read more in the press release of the National Institutes of Health

Published on:

By

Many adverse drug events are preventable and constitute Medical Malpractice. An adverse drug event occurs when a patient suffers injury resulting from medication use. Adverse drug events are the results of medication errors or of known side effects that may happen even if the medication is taken correctly.

According to a recent report from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and led by Audrey J. Weiss, Ph.D. and Anne Elixhauser, Ph.D. , 380,000 to 450,000 hospitalized patients suffer preventable adverse drug events every year.

According to the most recent statistics, in 2011, the most common causes of ADE during hospital stays were Steroids, Antibiotics, Opiates, Narcotics and Anticoagulants with 8 out of 1000 adults over 65 experiencing one of them while hospitalized.

Continue reading →
Badges
Super Lawyers Best Lawyers Martindale-Hubbell
SEE NEW JERSEY DISCLAIMER PAGE- AWARD METHODOLOGY