One Person Dies Each Day Due to Medication Errors l Seattle Wrongful Death Attorney

The Wall Street Journal recently reported about the alarming rate of death and injury caused by medication errors.  The article states that according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), at least one person dies each day and more than 1.3 million are injured each year due to mistakes with prescribing dangerous medication.  

There is a non-profit organization called the Institute for Safe Medication Practices.  ISMP is actually certified by the federal government to collect error reports and other information about quality breaches. ISMP together with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists are launching a new National Alert Network for Serious Medication Errors. The network will be used to send email alerts to 35,000 pharmacists working in hospitals and health systems, as well as physicians and nurses, when a dangerous or life-threatening error is reported to ISMP.

WSJ reports that there is growing pressure on doctors and hospitals to cut costs, especially in a down economy.  This pressure and cost-cutting may actually result in more medication errors.  Sloppy record keeping, poor organization, and the shortage of staff all combine to increase the chance that a mistake will be made in prescribing a certain medication, or giving the wrong dose, or both.

Consumers can also sign up for customized alerts about the medications they take and report problems they encounter with medications at ISMP’s consumermedsafety.org Web site, and submit reports of errors directly at the FDA at fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch.