Medication Errors: Incorrect Dosages Put Patient Safety at Risk

Dosing errors – also known as ‘simply taking a tad too much or too little of a medication’ – can have devastating consequences.

Indeed dosing errors may seem harmless, but in fact, these errors can cause short or long-term damage, life-altering injuries, and in severe cases, even death.

Unfortunately, these types of errors are very common. The FDA receives thousands of reports on dosing errors every year, and an estimated 7,000 deaths* occur annually due to medication errors.

According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, a medication error is “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer.”

“As a medical malpractice attorney who has worked on cases like this before, I have seen these errors occur in hospitals, doctors clinics and offices, pharmacies, and even at home,” confirms Ruffier.

“A medication dosing error occurs whenever a patient is given an incorrect medication dosage or is given incorrect instructions for administering the medication,” continues Ruffier. “Orlando pharmacies, physicians, and hospitals all have a responsibility to ensure patient safety by making certain that patients receive both the correct medication and the correct dosage of said medication.”

How Do Dosing Errors Occur?

Dosing errors can occur in several different ways. Errors can stem from human error, medication appearance changes, or mislabeling. In fact, even something as simple as bad lighting or poor handwriting can all lead to medication dosing errors.

Examples of dosing errors include being given the correct medication but being given:

• the wrong dosage per pill.
• the wrong frequency for taking the medication.
• the incorrect dosage instructions.

Moreover, dosing errors can also occur because:

• the patient received the wrong medication due to drug name confusion.
• medical personnel incorrectly entered decimal points and zeros in the medical system.
• pharmacy staff confused metric units and dosing units.