Medication Errors

Medication errors are a serious threat to patient safety in both hospitals and pharmacies. Many hospitals take proactive measures to prevent errors from happening by introducing quality control initiatives to ensure safe medication use systems.

Some hospitals and pharmacies have taken steps to prevent medication errors from happening such as:

• Facilitating an open and non-punitive culture within the organization
• Near miss reporting to identify and target areas for improvement
• Convene open forum of staff to discuss errors and future preventive strategies.
• Focus on high alert drugs and error prone situations
• Procedures established to have additional layers of check for critical medications Performing objective self-assessment of medication error risk protocols
• Review and root cause analysis of medication errors and improvement measures
• Input from all levels of staff involved in medication in procedure development Sharing of error reduction and prevention with other institutions

While most hospitals and pharmacies take steps to prevent medication errors – there are times that medication errors do occur. In the event that you or loved one has suffered from a medication error – you may be entitled to compensation. For more information on how SBMB lawyers can help including our expert Certified by The Law Society of Upper Canada as a Specialist in Health Law, and Civil Litigation; call 905-884-9242 today!