When it comes to medical errors, California leads the way with strict penalties. The state is one of 27 that requires hospitals to report these events. The penalty system is meant to deter hospitals from hiding medical mistakes or failing to disclose them. Nevertheless, it has failed to reduce the number of medical errors that occur.
It is estimated that there are over 5 million medication-related errors each year in the United States. These errors include omissions, errors in calculating doses and frequencies, medication mix-ups, and other preventable issues that can cause serious injury or death.
Medications play a critical role in the treatment of both chronic and acute illnesses. It is therefore important for patients to understand how safe and effective their medications are. The information that pharmacists provide is a critical part of the health care system.
The good news is that California Medical Error are declining in some areas, such as bedsores and infections. However, in other areas, such as leaving foreign objects inside patients during surgery, the rate is actually increasing. In addition, a recent study found that some hospital departments may not be reporting all errors to the state.
In an attempt to combat these problems, the state has recently passed the “Stop Dangerous Pharmacies Act,” which aims to crack down on understaffed chain pharmacies that will likely continue to make medication errors. The new law includes centralized EHR reporting, as well as new staffing regulations that will give pharmacists more autonomy over staffing decisions and require them to report unsafe conditions. In addition, it provides a system of confidential medication error reporting through an approved third-party entity.
According to the data obtained by our investigative unit, two Bay Area hospitals have the highest rates of reported adverse events in the state over the past four fiscal years: Stanford Medical Center and UCSF. These hospitals have a combined total of 6,282 adverse event reports. The most common errors are bedsores, followed by the retention of a foreign object in a patient.
Many of these errors are caused by an overworked pharmacist, whose job is to dispense hundreds of prescriptions while also juggling phone calls from patients, confirming orders with doctors’ offices, and working the drive-through window. As a result, they are often distracted and exhausted. They are also tasked with educating patients on the correct use of their medication, which can be challenging for an already busy staff.
As a consequence, pharmacists can easily make errors that affect their patients’ safety. To combat these errors, we need to focus on ensuring that each hospital’s systems are as safe as possible, and not wait until an error occurs in order to address the problem. Then it is too late. This is why it’s important to seek legal counsel that focuses on healthcare, including pharmacy law. Ron Lanton has over 25 years of experience focused on government affairs and the law including 20 years dedicated to the healthcare sector. He is the founding Partner of Lanton Strategies, a boutique healthcare consulting firm.