Chattanooga Medication Errors Law Firm

Medication Error Defined

A medication error is a type of medical error that is made when a professional within the medical field administers the wrong drug or administers a drug incorrectly. Medical errors also occur when medical professionals recommend the wrong dosage of a drug or administer inaccurate doses. In more specific terms, a medication error is defined 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 health care professional, patient, or consumer,” by the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention.

Common Types of Medication Errors

When medical professionals are administering medications to their patients, they may make a variety of harmful errors. Below are some of the more common medication errors people in the medical community tend to make while treating their patients:

Gathering inaccurate or incomplete patient information (when inaccurate information is collected by medical staff, patients stand a greater chance of being administered drugs that may cause them harm or medications that they may have a history of being allergic to)

Lack of current drug information (information pertaining to the use and administration can change from time-to-time, if medical professionals do not have the most up-to-date medication information, they may make an error while administering the drug or prescribing the drug)

Miscommunication (sometimes, medication errors are made because doctors write illegible prescriptions or because they fail to correctly communicate dosage information to patients)

Inaccurate labeling of medications (in some cases, medications may not be labeled correctly, which can lead to a patient taking the wrong drug or the wrong amount of a drug).

Tennessee Medication Error Lawyer
Helping Victims of Medication Error and Negligence in Chattanooga

When you have sustained a harmful injury at the hands of a medication professional, you should always speak with a medication errors attorney who is experienced in personal injury law and who is prepared to deal with medication related cases like Attorney Alexander W. Gothard.