Pharmacy Negligence Attorney in Miami, FL

Pharmacists across the country fill more than 4 billion prescriptions each and every year. In Miami, pharmacies range from local CVS store to large box stores, such as Walmart and Target. Sadly, when a pharmacist makes an error, it could be a matter of life and death. The type of medication and the severity of the error determine how severe the consequences may be.

For example:

Consider this, a pharmacist in Miami mistakenly fills a patient’s heart medicine with the wrong drug. Without his critical heart medication, the patient suffers a cardiac arrest and dies at home. This error is of a severe magnitude simply because of the type of medication that was missed due to the pharmacist’s error.

There are numerous types of pharmacy errors that can be made, but they can all be categorized into one of 3 groups:

Wrong Medication Pharmacy Errors

The type of medication you receive is vital to your recovery. Receiving the wrong medication can be life-threatening because not only are you failing to receive the medication you need, but you are also being exposed to the risks and dangers of another medication, which may not be appropriate for you. Receiving the wrong medication can include:

• Pharmacist filling your medication with a different medication
• Mislabeling your medication
• Failing to identify drug interactions
• Failing to identify drug allergies
• Mistakenly being given another person’s prescription
• Failing to double-check unclear prescriptions with physicians
• Confusing drugs that sound or are spelled alike

Wrong Dose Pharmacy Errors

Even when you receive the right medication, if you receive the wrong dose, the results can be tragic. Infants who receive adult size doses of medication are particularly at risk and sometimes the results are fatal. Simply failing to notice a decimal point can result in a patient receiving 10x more medication than is appropriate for his age and weight. Types of wrong dose errors can include:

• Receiving too much medication
• Receiving too little medication
• Incorrect dosing instructions given
• Confusing metric units and dosing units

Wrong Time Pharmacy Errors

There are many medications that must be given at certain times of the day. Some of these medications include sleeping pills, enzymes, and blood sugar medications. Types of wrong time pharmacy errors can include:

• Instructions to take medication more frequently or less frequently than prescribed
• Medication time written wrong
• Failure to label drug properly to include proper frequency of medication
• Mistaking AM for PM