According to the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA) a report published 10 years ago, found that prescription drugs killed over 100,000 people in our country each year. That is 3 times as many as are killed by automobiles – making prescription drug death the 4th leading killer after heart disease, cancer, and stroke.
In a more recent study, 50 pharmacies in 6 cities throughout the US were evaluated on their dispensing accuracy rate. The study found an overall accuracy rate of 98.3%. That’s 77 errors per 4,481 prescriptions. The authors of the study concluded that prescription dispensing mistakes occur at a rate of 4 errors per day in a pharmacy filling 250 prescriptions a day. If you do the math – with over 3 billion prescriptions being filled annually – there are over 50 million prescription errors.
- Ask Questions (Doctor/Pharmacist)
- Take your time
- Check the name of the medication
- Check the dosage
- Check the directions
- Ask about drug interaction
- Ask about side effects
- Don’t be in a hurry
If you or a loved one is a victim of pharmacy/pharmacits error that caused a serious injury, contact us to see if we can help.
recently named in the 2009 edition of Best Lawyer's In America, David Mittleman has been representing seriously injured people since 1985. A partner with Church Wyble PC—a division of Grewal Law PLLC—Mr. Mittleman and his partners focus on medical malpractice, wrongful death, car accidents, slip and falls, nursing home injury, pharmacy/pharmacist negligence and disability claims.
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