News tagged with 'Other Medical Errors'

A new medical malpractice study conducted by a consumer interest group has shed new light on the prevalence of prescribed medication errors in the United States. Released Wednesday, the US Pharmacopeia study examined 100,000 cases of medication error, determining that over 7,000 Americans die each year from taking the

Rite Aid Corporation must pay $850,000 to the family of a woman who died shortly after receiving a misfilled prescription at the company's Andalusia, Alabama store. Jewell Deal, 78, died of a heart attack in 1999, one month after Rite Aid filled a prescription for double her doctor-recommended dosage of the blood pres

Health administrators with Stony Brook University Hospital and Medical Center in New York have blamed the death of a six-day-old infant on a prescription error. According to a hospital spokesperson, the baby underwent surgery to repair a heart valve ailment and was being given potassium chloride to regulate his fluids

The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced this week that changes will soon be made to drug labels in an effort to control dangerous mix-ups that occur when medications have similar names. The FDA estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans are injured each year because of medication errors. For examp

In an effort to reduce drug errors that kill an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 patients each year, the federal government recently unveiled a plan that calls for bar codes on packaging of all hospital-administered medications. Scanning the code will reveal the drug's properties, such as recommended dosage, expiration dat

A recent study conducted by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) reviewed over 5,000 medication errors to discover why and how such errors occurred. According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP), a medication error is any preventable event th

A recent study by The Degge Group found that many doctors are uneducated when it comes to prescribing drugs that may negatively interact with one another. Researchers studied the prescribing habits of doctors who dispensed the now banned heartburn drug Propulsid. Figures indicate that between 1993 and 1998, 4,41

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices recently issued a warning about the names of three pairs of drugs, and the potential that both doctors and pharmacists could accidentally dispense one in place of the other. Prescribing errors often occur because of doctors' poor handwriting, as well as confusing drug names.