Medical Malpractice News

Medication Error Death

Legal Issues Regarding Medications Errors
Approximately 30% of all malpractice claims involve drug-related injuries. An average payment of $99,721 was made for 2,195 out of the 6,646 claims reported to the Physician Insurers Association of America during the period 1985 through 1992.4 Anyone who manufactures, sells, distributes, prescribes, dispenses, or administers drugs, as well as the health care facility that employs them or places the medication in their formulary can be sued for subsequent patient injuries.

Theory of Liability
Health care providers sued for medication errors generally incur liability under the theory of negligence. Negligence is a tort that relates to an injury caused by conduct that deviates from a “standard of care.” Medical malpractice is a type of negligence that denotes an injury to a patient caused by a health care provider’s conduct that deviates from a professional standard of care. In a malpractice claim of a medication error, a jury assesses a health care provider’s behavior to determine whether it adhered to the professional standards of practice required by both his profession and the law.

Example Case:
The patient immediately had a reaction and died 16 days later. The patient’s family sued the physician, the hospital, and the nursing, clerical and pharmacy staff. Prior to trial the resident settled the claim against him for $230,000. At trial it was learned that the defendants relied on a computer generated Medication Administration Record (MAR) which listed
“no allergies” for the patient. The defendants failed to thoroughly review the patient’s medical records for allergies or check the MARs for any inconsistencies. The court concluded that the defendant health care providers had failed their responsibilities to verify the appropriateness of the patient’s prescriptions and to bring potential problems to the attention of the prescriber.  The plaintiffs were awarded $350,000 in damages.

Please contact us if anyone you know has suffered from debilitating injuries due to medical malpractice in Alaska.

	Did You Know?
	Drug-switching practices happen and are very dangerous Another public-spirited drug giant, Merck, was forced to pay a settlement of $1.9 million to 17 states in 1995 for drug-switching practices involving its Medco subsidiary. Medco pharmacists, who had given excessively favorable treatment to Merck products, were thereafter required to reveal their Merck connection to their customers.