Prescription Errors:
Drugs and Miscommunication 

What is a Prescription Drug Error?        

The Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) defines prescription error 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.  Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use.”  (www.fda.gov). 

Prescription errors typically occur because your health care provider or pharmacist failed to exercise the proper level of care in administering medication to you.  There are numerous potential causes for this negligence:

1. Poor communication between your doctors

2. Poor communication between you and your doctor

3. Prescribing the patient the wrong medication

4. Prescribing the patient the wrong dosage of medication

5. Prescribing medication the patient is allergic to

6. Prescribing medication that adversely reacts with other medications the patient is taking

7. Mislabeling the medication, and

8. Failing to inform the patient about the common side effects of the medication.

Medical Malpractice in Prescription Error

Prescription errors will almost always involve some level of medical negligence by which your doctor can be held liable for medical malpractice.  In other words, your doctor may have breached his duty of care to you – the duty to exercise that degree of care and skill of a reasonably competent and skilled health care professional who practices in the same specialty.  This objective standard is what Mr. da Costa and his associates can help you prove in court, along with the help of the medical experts in our web of resources.

Although the vast majority of prescription errors are preventable through proper procedures, unfortunately, prescription error cases are one of the most common types of medical malpractice.