LEGAL ANALYSIS 1. Which law(s)/statute(s) or regulation(s) is the issue in your article held to? The article I chose is not directly associated to any particular law or regulation. The time constraints placed on pharmacists can lead to errors being made and a potential case for medical malpractice against the pharmacist. Medical malpractice can occur when a professional makes a mistake or error when acting within his or her scope of practice, which leads to harm or damages to another person. The pharmacist could then sue the company they are employed with for the use of performance metrics that hindered their ability to provide effective care to their patients. This type of issue would most likely be decided by the court system since there is no specific legislation on the topic of performance metrics in pharmacy practice. 2. There several ways that a pharmacist can make errors when filling prescription or managing their workplace in general. Pharmacists can give patients the wrong medication, strength, quantity, or even put the wrong instructions on the bottle. Ineffective counseling of patients and improper management of pharmacy technicians may also be classified as a breach of duty by the pharmacist. The third element to a malpractice case is evidence of direct causation. The plaintiff must prove that there was a direct link between the pharmacy error and the damages they received. There cannot be other confounding factors that may have caused the damage. The final evidence that has to be provided is the proof of damages. There is no minimum dollar amount that is needed to make a case but there must be evidence of sufficient damage to show that the patient suffered from the error made by the pharmacist. If the plaintiff’s damages are minor then the case may be thrown out in court since the damages are not severe enough to make a compelling
“In tort law, the doctrine which holds a defendant guilty of negligence without an actual showing that he or she was negligent. Its use is limited in theory to cases in which the cause of the plaintiff's injury was entirely under the control of the defendant, and the injury presumably could have been caused only by negligence”(Burt, M.A., & Skarin, G.D. (2011). In consideration of this, the defendant argues that the second foundation of this principle should be solely based on common knowledge of the situation. Although, there is a experts testimony tartar is no basis in this case , in the experts testimony or anything else, for indicating that the plaintiffs injury resulted from the negligence of the defendant. The court correctly found the defendant not liable under the Res ipsa
Mr. Joseph Wahba had a prescription that was filled by the Zuckerman’s Pharmacy in Brooklyn, The prescription drug was called Lomotil, it was used to counteract stomach disorders Mr. Wahba had the pharmacy would dispensed pills into a small plastic container unequipped with the "child-proof" cap as required by law. When Mr. Wahba’s child discovered container and ingested approximately twenty of the pills before being interrupted by his mother. He was rushed to the hospital, lapsed into coma and died. The family would file a suit against H & N Prescription Center, Inc.
Jack’s case is an example of medical negligence. The physician that prescribed the prescription should have done a full physical and medical exam on the patient. Jack’s physician failed to ask if he was allergic to any medication. Before prescribing any medication one of the first questions should be what or if they are allergic to anything. Jack faced several health complications such as difficult breathing, turning red, and falling to the floor. He went into anaphylactic shock due to the fatal allergic reaction. The last encounter with Sulfa, Jack developed a rash due to the allergic reaction. Health professionals are required to undergo training
Medical error occurs more than most people realize and when a doctor is found negligent the patient has the right to sue for compensation of their losses. Debates and issues arise when malpractice lawsuits are claimed. If a patient is filing for a medical malpractice case, the l...
Medication Errors one of the biggest issues happening in an acute care setting today . Although, Medications are given based on the five rights principles: the right patient, right medication, right route, right dose, and right time. Even with the five rights principles medication errors are still happening. However, some of the errors that are occurring are due to poor order transcriptions and documentation, drug interactions, proper drug name and not paying enough attention and environment factors.
A medication error is any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or harm to a patient (NCCMERP 2014). The death rate for medication errors averages around 7,000 deaths per year. Lawsuits for medication errors were mainly made against registered nurses because nurses are the last people to check a medication before it is administered. 426 medication error related lawsuits were made against registered nurses. (RightDiagnosis 2014).
A newly employed critical care nurse was just about to finish a 12 hour night shift when she realized she had one more patient to administer medication to. It was the busiest Friday night shift she has ever worked due to poor nurse-patient ratio, and the workload felt impossible. She gave her last patient the properly prescribed medication, but failed to notice that the physician hastily wrote an updated dosage for a high risk medication, Digoxin. The patient’s heart rate began to slow down and life-saving procedures had to be activated. Medication errors are “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
Medical malpractice cases are difficult for the families who have lost their loved one or have suffered from severe injuries. No one truly wins in complicated court hearings that consist of a team of litigation attorneys for both the defendant and plaintiff(s). During the trial, evidence supporting malpractice allegations have to be presented so that the court can make a decision if the physician was negligent resulting in malpractice, or if the injury was unavoidable due to the circumstances. In these types of tort cases, the physician is usually a defendant on trial trying to prove that he or she is innocent of the medical error, delay of treatment or procedure that caused the injury. The perfect example of being at fault for medical malpractice as a result of delaying a procedure is the case of Waverly family versus John Hopkins Health System Corporation. The victims were not compensated enough for the loss of their child’s normal life. Pozgar (2012) explained….
One must evaluate all parties involved. It can be argued that do to the lack of documentation or communication of the physician this was an act of negligence. A jury can decide that lack of documentation is sufficient evidence in finding a physician guilty of negligence (Pozgar, 2009). When we look at the role of the defendant which was the pharmacist not the physician his duty goes above just filling prescriptions, the duty of a pharmacist is to monitor the patient’s medication. In order for him to have achieved this properly he should have made sure he contacted the physician for further information even if the physician failed to communicate with him. Because of his actions the plaintiff is holding the pharmacist accountable for his treatment and that is not where all of the blame should be consumed. The argument that can be made for the pharmacist is that the pharmacist acted within his scope of practice and left everything to the physician. This situation can easily be construed as, if the physician needed further medications or if there were any adverse reaction then he would have contacted the pharmacist. Once again the prosecutor may argue that the pharmacist had a duty to follow up on any treatment that he provided to a patient. These arguments would be the most persuasive. These are the key elements in determining the case being argued. For example the pharmacist not following up with the patient’s physician may be
Giving out the wrong medication, or improper dosages can potentially be fatal to patients. Pharmacy technicians must be willing to take on this risk and do their work as carefully and accurately as possible.
What classifies as a Medication errors? An error can occur any time during the medication administration process. A medication error can be explained 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 healthcare professional, patient, or consumer” (National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, 2014, para 1). Rather it is at prescribing, transcribing, dispensing or at the time of administration all these areas are equally substantial in producing possible errors that could potentially harm the patient (Flynn, Liang...
Nurses are expected to provide a competent level of care that is indicative of their education, experience, skill, and ability to act on agency policies or procedures. In a study of 1,116 hospitals Bond, Raehl, and Franke (2001) found, “Medication errors occurred in 5.07% of the patients admitted each year to these hospitals. Each hospital experienced a medication error every 22.7 hours (every 19.73 admissions). Medication errors that adversely affected patient care outcomes occurred in 0.25% of all patients admitted to these hospitals/year”(p. 4). This means at least one medication error occurs every 24 hours in those facilities studied, and these are preventable errors. The main responsibilities of nurses when administering medications are to prevent or catch error, and report such error. Even if the physician or prescribing health care professional has made a mistake in the order, it is the nurse’s job to question the
The ratio decidendi for the decision in Smith was that, at the time of death, the original wound was still an operating and substantial cause. Furthermore, in Cheshire, the victim died because of a known, and perhaps foreseeable, complication in a surgery. Although in this case, the wounds were not the operative cause of death, medical intervention was not seen as an adequate defence for the defendant because it had to be ‘so independent of his acts, and in itself so potent in causing death’ . In both of these cases, it is not enough that there has been bad medical treatment. However, an exception to this is found in Jordan, where medical treatment was sufficient as a defence. In this case, the victim had been given a drug he was allergic to and there was evidence to suggest that the hospital should have known about the allergy. The court concluded that to break the causal chain medical treatment must be grossly negligent, or ‘palpably wrong’ and the original wound had virtually
Medical and medication errors and adverse events are well known issues in the health care industry, regardless of country. Errors are either the correct implementation of the wrong procedure or the wrong implementation of the correct procedure (IOM, 1999 pp23-25). Adverse events are considered unintended injuries and/or harm that are caused to the patient but not necessarily due to human error. This proposal will present a technical solution, using case based reasoning, to help prevent the occurrence of errors, thus reduce adverse events, and to make suggestions to the line staff as to what to do when such an event or error happens.
First, here is some important background information about Pharmacists. A Pharmacist is someone who is trained and licensed to distribute medicinal drugs and to advise on their use. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook Pharmacists do all of the following: "Fill prescriptions, verify proper amounts of medication to give to patients, check whether the prescription will interact negatively with other drugs that a patient is taking or conditions the patient has, instruct patients on how to and when to take a prescribed medicine, Advise patients on potential side effects they may experience from taking the medicine, Advise patients about general health topics, such as diet, exercise, managing stress, and on other issues, such as what equipment or supplies would be best for a health problem, Keep records and do other administrative tasks, Complete insurance forms and work with insurance companies to be sure that patients get the medicine they need, Teach other healthcare practitioners about proper medication therapies for patients, and lastly oversee the work of pharmacy technicians and pharmacists training."() Some pharmacists participate in compounding, where they create medications by mixing ingredients themselves. Pharmacists tha...