Riverside County Medication Errors Lawyer

There are more than 15,000 nursing homes across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and about 1,200 of those facilities are located in California, according to the California Association of Health Facilities. To put that number another way, California has a high number of nursing homes, with about 8% of all facilities in the country. While facilities must provide a certain level of care for nursing home residents, issues like understaffing and other negligence-related problems frequently lead to accidents and errors, which ultimately result in harm to residents. Medication errors are a common reason for resident injuries in nursing homes.

Unlike assisted-living facilities and other residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) in California, nursing homes are required to provide a specific amount of nursing care, which includes medical care that many patients require. In prescribing, dosing, and administering medications, serious mistakes can occur that can have severe and even deadly consequences. If you have an elderly loved one in a Southern California nursing home who was harmed by a medication mistake, it is important to seek legal help. A Riverside County medication errors lawyer at our firm can talk with you today.

The term “medication error” refers to any mistake that occurs in the process of prescribing, dosing, filling, or administering a medication. Common types of medication errors that occur in nursing homes and other healthcare settings include but are not limited to:

• Wrong medicine prescribed;
• Medicine prescribed that has a harmful interaction with patient’s existing drug regimen;
• Wrong dose of a medicine prescribed;
• Incorrect medication or dosage filled by a pharmacist;
• Wrong medicine administered to a patient; or
• Wrong dosage of a medicine administered to a patient.

Depending on the type and severity of the error, a medication error can result in varying degrees of harm. In particularly egregious cases, a resident at a nursing home can die as a result of a medication mistake.

Who is responsible when medication errors occur in a nursing home setting? In general, nursing homes themselves can be liable for various forms of harm that occur in a facility, whether it is intentional or a result of negligence. In addition to the nursing home itself, other parties who could be liable for a nursing home medication mistake include but are not limited to:

• Prescribing physician, physician’s assistant, or nurse practitioner;
• Pharmacist who fills the medication; or
• Nurse or other nursing home employee who administers the medication.

Ultimately, as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) underscores, a large percentage of medication mistakes occur in medication administration, which means that these errors occur at nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and RCFEs throughout California. Depending on the circumstances, the employee administering the medication and the facility could be liable in these cases.

Do you have concerns about a loved one’s health or safety in a nursing home due to a possible medication mistake? An experienced Riverside County medication error attorney is here to help. Contact the Southern California Nursing Home Law Group to find out more about filing a claim.