It’s a Matter of Being Right

When it comes to taking medications or giving medications, it’s a
matter of being right in order to avoid potentially disastrous
consequences that would lead to a medical malpractice lawsuit.

It really shouldn’t be asking too much to get the right medications
when a patient is in a hospital or other clinical setting where medical
treatment is being carried out. After all, that would be a reasonable
expectation of the patient. Patients rely on caregivers to look out for
them and not harm them by giving them something that either produces a
bad reaction or ends up causing the patient’s death. Unfortunately,
medication errors are far too common and in order to avoid them, health
care professionals must take steps to monitor their actions or face a
potential Cleveland medical malpractice lawsuit.

Generally speaking there are at least five things, or five rights
that patients should expect from medical personnel. The first thing is
that the patient is correctly identified. While this may sound like a
fairly straightforward job, those who perform it typically also answer
phones, screen calls, take refill information, sign in co-pays and
other miscellaneous distracting duties. If this causes negligence on
the part of the medical intake person, they may face a Cleveland medical malpractice suit.

Consider the ramifications if the patient is initially not
identified properly. This could mean the wrong treatment, wrong
surgery, wrong diagnosis or a multitude of other errors all compounded
by the patient being given the wrong name, charts and other vital
medical information. This admittedly is more of a problem on admission
to the hospital if the patient is not able to communicate articulately.

A patient’s second well deserved right is that they get the correct
drug. Unfortunately this is a real concern in many health care
settings, as drugs are often prescribed, handed out and given to
patients without any information about their potential allergies, their
age, height, weight, lab results, actual clinical condition or
diagnosis. This is a recipe for disaster.

Add to this physicians who write faster than they think and hand out
prescriptions that defy all logic with creative names for drugs they
can’t recall and doses that are, at best, questionable. Unfortunately,
there isn’t always a check and balance system in place to keep track of
what patient gets what drugs when everyone is under the gun to care for
more patients than there are beds. The possibility of negligence in a
hospital or other clinical setting may be very high given the
overburdened health system, something a Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer knows well.

Right number three deals with getting the right dose of a
medication. This is a particularly difficult area, as trying to set the
right dose for the patient is mostly done by an educated guess based on
age, height, weight, what other drugs the person is taking and any
known allergies. The art of different dosing for each patient is not
one that everyone in health care settings understands well enough.
Consider the case of a nurse crushing a time release capsule for a
senior and finding out later crushing the tablet releases the whole
dose at once with dreadful consequences.

Along with the right dose of medication comes patient right number
four, the right route to administer the medication. In most instances,
giving a pill or liquid is the easiest, safest and most cost effective
route. However, there are other methods of administration such as
intravenous, intradermal, subcutaneous and intramuscular that have the
potential to go off the rails if done incorrectly. Other even more
tricky methods of giving a drug include intracardiac, intrapleural,
intraspinal, intraarticular and intrathecal. These are particularly
dangerous routes of administration of a drug, as once the drug is
injected there is no way to get it back.

Patient right number five relates to getting the right medication at
the right time. If the required dose is delayed or forgotten, this
becomes a medication error with the potential to cause significant
problems such as making up doses and giving them too close together.

For a violation of patient’s rights, it is critical to speak with a Cleveland medical malpractice attorney to ensure justice is served.

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