A medical center in Minneapolis, Minnesota (MN), has reduced medical errors by simply making sure that pharmacists participated in the patient discharge process.
Officials decided to seriously look at pharmacy errors after they spot-checked perscriptions for 37 patients sent home from the hospital over a 3-months and found errors in 92 percent of the medication records. Physicians either prescribed a wrong dose, prescribed duplicate medications or omitted needed medications.
To address this problem, the medical center assigned pharmacists to review all discharge orders. After a new spot-check, the medical center discovered that the error rate had gone down to zero. More importantly, the 30-day readmission rate, or the number of patients bouncing back to the medical center, was cut in half.
As a personal injury lawyer in Virginia (VA), I know it takes a lot of courage to publically admit an error and find a workable solution. Some medical centers would rather ignore the problem and hope that nothing serious happens. Unfortunately, it only takes one error to cause a serious injury, or even death.
Attorenys at my firm had the opportunity to represent a client who was given the wrong dosage of a medication and suffered a massive rectal hemorrhage. The man required three hospitalizations to resolve the injury, and we were able to help him receive $200,000 so he could move on with his life without being financially crippled by medical bills.
If you have been harmed because of a mistake made by a pharmacist or doctor, please talk to an attorney. You have options and people available who want to help.
AC