Medical facilities, hospitals and pharmacies have implemented a multitude of high-tech measures over the years in an attempt to eradicate medication errors. The reality, however, is that while high-tech measures like bar code technology and electronic health records have helped reduce the tide of drug errors to a certain degree, it nevertheless remains a very […]
Most of us take it for granted that when we pick up our medications from the local pharmacy that the labels and accompanying instructions will be written in English. However, what if you went to pick up a prescription for yourself or a family member only to find that this information was written in a […]
When infants and young children fall ill, there is a very good chance that the physician in charge of their care will prescribe them a liquid medicine to treat their condition. This, of course, is not a coincidence as pediatric patients are typically too young to swallow pills safely, and their natural aversion to medication […]
It often seems that we read about pharmacies providing patients with the wrong prescriptions, the wrong dosages or the wrong instructions on a semi-regular basis. Fortunately, the majority of these stories have relatively happy endings in the sense that the victims don’t suffer permanent and debilitating injuries because of these otherwise preventable medication errors. However, […]
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there are a surprisingly large number of reasons why a patient can end up with the wrong drug, including confusion over dosage or similar sounding drug names, illegible physician handwriting and poorly designed medication packaging, to name only a few. While you might imagine the fallout from […]
Officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, one of the largest installations in the entire Air Force, were on high alert earlier this month following the news that one of the pharmacies located on base may have subjected thousands of people to potentially dangerous medication mistakes. According to reports, the pharmacy became aware of a problem […]
If you’ve ever walked out of a doctor’s appointment with a prescription or two in your hand, there’s a good chance that you couldn’t begin to decipher what exactly was written on the paper in front of you. In fact, this inability to decipher may have had nothing to do with the poor penmanship that […]
Most medical experts would agree that when it comes to protecting yourself and your family against medication errors, the best line of defense is vigilance. Specifically, it can pay real dividends to set aside just a few moments to read through the literature accompanying a prescription. The unfortunate reality, however, is that we are often […]
When you go to the local pharmacy, you are accustomed to seeing a flurry of activity behind the counter as technicians and pharmacists alike are busy processing and preparing prescriptions. However, if you happen to notice fewer people the next time you make a pharmacy pickup, be on the lookout for a large machine situated […]
Last time, our blog discussed the importance of accurate measurements and precise calculations in the medical realm. In particular, we discussed how any imprecision concerning administered medications can often mean the difference between life and death for a patient. By way of illustration, we began talking about a case out of California, where the parents […]
