When you’re prescribed medication by your doctor, take medicine during a hospital stay, or pick up a prescription from your local pharmacy, you expect to receive the correct medication and dosage for your condition.
If you or a loved one suffer harm due to being given the wrong medication or an incorrect dosage in Stroudsburg , you might be entitled to financial compensation.
Your healthcare providers will have their insurance company’s attorneys on their side to prevent you from recovering the compensation you deserve. Call the Munley Law medical malpractice lawyers in Stroudsburg today to discuss your medical malpractice claim. Your consultation is free, and you owe us nothing until we win your case.
When Pharmacy Errors Result from Negligence in Stroudsburg
We trust healthcare professionals to ensure we receive the proper treatment, and it’s reasonable to expect they will provide the correct medication in the correct dosage. Yet, according to a study released by the National Institutes of Health, medication errors are the most common avoidable cause of patient harm in the US.
While medical professionals are human and can make errors, they must provide you with the appropriate medical care, including the correct medications. If a doctor mistakenly prescribes a drug that negatively interacts with your current medication, or if a pharmacist incorrectly fills your prescription, you could suffer serious injuries as a result.
Pharmacy errors can lead to significant harm or even death. When these errors result from negligence, they can be grounds for a medical malpractice claim. Understanding your medical provider’s “duty of care” is essential for pursuing legal action for prescription error claims.
Duty of Care in Pharmacy Practice
The duty of care is a legal obligation that requires healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, to provide care that meets accepted medical standards. This duty encompasses several responsibilities, such as:
- Accurate Dispensing: Ensuring the correct medication is dispensed.
- Proper Labeling: Providing clear and accurate labels with dosage instructions.
- Checking for Drug Interactions: Reviewing patients’ medications to prevent harmful interactions.
- Patient Counseling: Informing patients about their medications, including potential side effects and proper usage.
How a Medication Error Can Constitute Medical Malpractice in Stroudsburg
For a medication error to be considered medical malpractice, the following elements must be proven:
- Duty of Care: The pharmacist had a duty to provide care that met established medical standards, and they failed to meet that duty.This includes accurately dispensing medications, labeling them correctly, and ensuring they do not interact harmfully with other medications the patient is taking.
- Breach of Duty:The pharmacist failed to meet the accepted standard of care. Examples of a breach might include dispensing the wrong medication, incorrect labeling, failing to check for drug interactions, or providing incorrect dosage instructions.
- Causation: The pharmacist’s breach of duty directly caused harm to the patient. It must be shown that the error was a direct and proximate cause of the injury or adverse outcome.
- Damages:The patient suffered actual harm or injury as a result of the medication error. This can include physical injury, additional medical costs, pain and suffering, or other damages.
Types of Pharmacy Errors in Stroudsburg
Medication errors can lead to serious health complications, and they can even be life-threatening. Several errors can lead to a patient receiving the wrong medication or incorrect dosage, including:
Failure to Note Drug Interactions
This type of error occurs when a healthcare provider prescribes a medication without considering how it might interact with other medications the patient is already taking. Drug interactions can lead to severe side effects, increased toxicity, or reduced effectiveness of the medications.
Giving a Patient the Wrong Medication
This error involves administering a medication different from what was intended. It can occur due to similar drug names, incorrect labeling, or human error during dispensing or administration.
Miscalculating the Dosage
This error happens when the dose of a medication is incorrectly calculated. Causes include misinterpretation of prescribing information, mathematical errors, or incorrect patient data such as age or weight.
A Medical Negligence Lawyer Can Help with Your Pharmacy Error Claim
A personal injury claim for a pharmacy error requires proving certain things are true. Your pharmacist, medical provider, pharmacy, or hospital will have attorneys working hard to protect them. Ensure you have an experienced personal injury attorney on YOUR side, protecting your rights.
A Stroudsburg medical malpractice attorney at Munley Law knows how to prove liability and negligence in these special cases and how to collect the evidence, expert witnesses, and more to prove your medical malpractice lawsuit.
Who is responsible for pharmacy errors in Stroudsburg?
Pharmacy errors can be made by pharmacy staff, prescribers, manufacturers, and distributors, and multiple parties might be responsible depending on the specifics of your case. Liable parties can include:
- Pharmacists:Pharmacists are directly responsible for dispensing medications accurately, labeling them correctly, and providing proper instructions to patients. They must also check for potential drug interactions and ensure the medication is appropriate for the patient’s condition.
- Pharmacy Technicians: Pharmacy technicians assist pharmacists in preparing and dispensing medications. If a pharmacy technician makes an error in the preparation or labeling of a medication, they can be held responsible, though the supervising pharmacist may also bear responsibility.
- The Pharmacy: The pharmacy itself can be held liable for errors if it is found that systemic issues, such as inadequate training, understaffing, or a lack of proper procedures, contributed to the error.
- Prescribing Physicians: If a medication error results from a physician prescribing the wrong prescription drug or dosage, failing to consider prescription medication interactions, or prescribing the wrong drug to the wrong patient. the physician can be held liable for the error.
- Pharmaceutical Companies: In some cases, the pharmaceutical company itself might be at fault. They could be responsible for incorrect labeling, packaging errors, or providing misleading information about the drug.
Contact the Stroudsburg Pharmacy Errors Lawyers at Munley Law for a Free Consultation
Suppose a pharmaceutical error has harmed you or a loved one. In that case, you might be entitled to financial 
compensation for your economic (such as medical bills and lost wages) and non-economic (such as pain and suffering) losses.
Your first step is to talk to an experienced medication error “Super Lawyer” in Stroudsburg about your case.
Munley Law’s personal injury attorneys excel at this type of malpractice lawsuit, and we are recognized across Pennsylvania and the nation for our high settlement amounts.
Call our Stroudsburg law offices today for your free initial consultation. You owe us nothing until we win.
Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys
27 N 6th St,
Stroudsburg, PA 18360
(570) 338-4494
