Nursing home residents often rely on multiple medications to manage chronic conditions, control pain, prevent complications, and maintain their quality of life. With numerous prescriptions and frequent dosing schedules, however, medication mistakes can occur. For older adults who may already be medically vulnerable, even a seemingly minor error can have serious consequences.
Families with loved ones in long-term care should understand how nursing home medication errors happen, recognize potential warning signs, and know when a mistake may justify further investigation.
What Is a Nursing Home Medication Error?
A medication error occurs when a resident receives medication in a way that differs from the appropriate prescription or standard of care. These mistakes can happen during prescribing, dispensing, administering, or monitoring a medication.
Common nursing home medication errors may include:
- Giving the wrong medication to a resident,
- Administering the wrong dosage,
- Giving medication at the wrong time or missing a dose,
- Failing to recognize dangerous drug interactions,
- Continuing a medication that should have been discontinued,
- Crushing or altering medication that should be taken intact,
- Failing to monitor a resident for adverse reactions, and/or
- Improperly documenting medications that were administered.
Errors may involve nurses, physicians, pharmacies, or other healthcare professionals involved in a resident’s care.
Why Medication Errors Can Be Dangerous for Older Adults
Nursing home residents may be particularly susceptible to medication-related injuries. Older adults often take several prescriptions at once, and age-related changes can affect how the body processes certain drugs.
A medication mistake could potentially cause excessive sedation, falls, internal bleeding, changes in blood pressure, kidney or liver problems, allergic reactions, or other serious complications. In severe cases, an error may result in hospitalization or death.
Families should pay attention to unexplained changes in their loved one’s condition, particularly after a new medication is prescribed or a dosage is changed. Sudden confusion, unusual sleepiness, dizziness, weakness, falls, vomiting, or significant behavioral changes may warrant prompt medical attention.
When Does a Medication Error Become Medical Malpractice?
Not every adverse reaction or medication mistake automatically constitutes medical malpractice. Generally, a claim requires evidence that a healthcare provider failed to meet the applicable standard of care and that the failure caused injury to the patient.
For example, questions may arise if nursing home staff repeatedly administered the wrong dosage, failed to follow clear physician orders, overlooked a documented allergy, or failed to respond appropriately to obvious signs of a dangerous medication reaction.
Determining responsibility can be complicated because several parties may have participated in prescribing, filling, administering, and monitoring the medication.
What Should Families Do After a Suspected Medication Error?
If you suspect a medication error, the resident’s immediate health should come first. Seek appropriate medical care and ask healthcare providers to explain what medication was given, the prescribed dosage, and what may have gone wrong.
It can also be helpful to document symptoms and conversations with nursing home personnel. Medication administration records, physician orders, pharmacy records, nursing notes, and other medical records may later help determine how the error occurred.
If a medication mistake has caused significant injury, a Seattle medical malpractice attorney can review the circumstances and help determine whether negligent care may have contributed to the harm. An investigation can also identify which healthcare providers or facilities may bear responsibility for the resident’s injuries.
Contact Otorowski & Golden, PLLC
Please know that our firm is here to help if you were injured due to a medical provider’s malpractice. Otorowski & Golden, PLLC provides free consultations to all our potential clients. The attorneys at our law firm also have over 120 years of combined experience representing injured parties in medical malpractice cases. They never back down to insurers and fight for their clients’ interests every step of the way. Do yourself a favor and contact them now for the quality legal representation you deserve.