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Pain Medication Overdose and Other Medication Errors at Children's Hospitals - Medical Malpractice
According to the study, “Twenty-two percent of all adverse drug events were deemed preventable, 17.8% could have been identified earlier, and 16.8% could have been mitigated more effectively. The most common medication classes causing adverse drug events were opioids/ analgesics (51%) and antibiotics, and the most common stages of the medication management process associated with preventable adverse drug events were monitoring and prescribing/ordering.” The highest rate of adverse drug events per patient occurred in the hematology/oncology units.
Opioid analgesics include morphine, codeine, fentanyl and other pain medications. The risk is pain medication overdose. There are several reasons for this including:
- The increased difficulty of calculating dosages of pain medication for children
- Failure to adequately monitor the patient
- The dangerous nature of these medications
If your child experienced serious injury or death after being administered a pain medication or any medication in a hospital, you should contact a medical malpractice lawyer immediately. To contact attorney Fred Pritzker, managing attorney for our medical malpractice cases, for information on medication overdose lawsuits, please call 1-888-377-8900 (toll-free) or submit our free case consultation form.
Article: "Development, Testing, and Findings of a Pediatric-Focused Trigger Tool to Identify Medication-Related Harm in US Children's Hospitals,"Glenn S. Takata, MDa,b, Wilbert Mason, MD, MPHc, Carol Taketomo, PharmDe, Tina Logsdon, MSf and Paul J. Sharek, MD, MPHg, PEDIATRICS, Vol. 121 No. 4, April 2008, pp. e927-e935.
Labels: children's health, medication error, pain medication overdose
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Medical Malpractice Topics
Pain and Suffering
Rich Ruohonen recently chaired a legal seminar on obtaining compensation for pain and suffering in a personal injury case. Rich uses his knowledge, experience, and reputation to maximize recoveries for clients.
$950,000 Recovery for Failure to Diagnose Septic Arthritis
Pritzker | Ruohonen attorneys Fred Pritzker and Elliot Olsen recently secured a $950,000 recovery on behalf of a young man who developed septic arthritis eight days following knee surgery.
Pritzker | Ruohonen Newsletter
Pritzker | Ruohonen is now publishing its newsletters online. Sign up today to receive the newsletter via email. Read our newsletters: Feb/March 2008 and April/May 2008.
Dental Malpractice: Oral Surgery and Burn Injuries
The FDA has recently stated that poorly-maintained dental equipment has resulted in severe burns. These cases could involve both dental malpractice and product liability claims.
Hospital Malpractice Lawsuits
Hospital malpractice includes any type of medical negligence that occurs in a hospital setting, including errors by doctors, nurses, technicians and other hospital staff.
Neurosurgery Errors
Surgical errors are common and can lead to serious injury or death. In an article in the medical journal Neurosurgery that reported on a study of 1108 elective neurosurgical procedures, a neurosurgeon recorded 2684 errors in 87.1% of the cases. 22.6% of the errors were considered major. 78.5% of the errors were deemed preventable.
