San Diego County Medication Error Lawyer

When you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home or assisted living facility in San Diego County, you should be able to expect that they will be properly prescribed the medications they need, that the prescribed drugs will not cause harmful interactions with their existing drug regiment, that medications will be dispensed and filled properly, and that any staff member on duty will properly administer the medication. However, medication mistakes happen in nursing homes just as they do in many other types of facilities where patients or residents require medications and medical care. When a medication error causes harm in a nursing home, it is important to seek advice from a San Diego County medication error lawyer.

What is a medication error? According to the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), medication errors are one type of general medical error, and they result in harm to “at least 1.5 million people every year.” The AMCP uses the following definition of a medication error:

“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.”

The AMCP clarifies that medication errors result from negligence in professional practice and procedures, problems with the medications themselves, and errors in medication systems, including but not limited to “prescribing, order communication, product labeling, packaging and nomenclature, compounding, dispensing, distribution, administration, education, monitoring, and use.”

Similar to other settings where parties receive health care, multiple parties could be liable for a medication error in a San Diego County nursing home. As the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) emphasizes, most adverse drug events occur in prescribing or ordering a drug, transcribing the prescription, dispensing the drug, or administering the medication. As a result, one or more of the following parties may be liable:

• Nursing home facility;
• Prescribing physician, nurse practitioner, or physician's assistant;
• Staff member at the nursing home who transcribed the orders for the prescription;
• Nurse or other health care provider administering the medication to the nursing home resident; and/or
• Pharmacist at the nursing home who filled the prescription or dispensed the drug.

Nursing home residents can sustain serious and life-threatening injuries in many different ways, including medication errors that result from negligence. Given that older adults in nursing homes often take a range of medications, including drugs that can interfere with one another, it is critical for healthcare providers in every nursing home in Southern California to take reasonable care when prescribing and administering medications to elderly residents.

If you have a loved one in a Southern California nursing home who sustained injuries because of a medication error, you should seek legal help from one of our San Diego County medication error lawyers as soon as possible. Contact the Southern California Nursing Home Law Group to discuss your case.