Chicago Medication & Pharmaceutical Errors Attorney
Any patient who visits a doctor’s office or another healthcare facility and receives a prescription for a medication or is administered a drug while undergoing a procedure in the hospital should be able to fully expect that the medication will not result in preventable harm. Yet medication and pharmaceutical errors are much more common than you might think, and various types of mistakes and defects can result in severe and debilitating patient injuries. In many cases, a healthcare provider’s negligence may be the cause of a medication mistake. In other circumstances, a defect in the drug or prescribed medication may be to blame for patient injuries. Our experienced Chicago medication and pharmaceutical error lawyers can assist you.
What is a Chicago Medication Error?
How do you know if you have suffered an injury as a result of a medication error in Chicago? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a medication error can be defined as “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer.” Every year, the FDA receives approximately 100,000 reports of suspected medication mistakes, and those can come from healthcare providers, patients, and drug manufacturers.
Common Types of Chicago Medication and Pharmaceutical Errors
Chicago medication and pharmaceutical errors can take many different forms, including but not limited to the following:
- Physician prescribes the wrong medication for the patient’s symptoms;
- Physician prescribes the wrong amount of the correct medication;
- Physician prescribes a medication to which the patient has an allergy due to a negligent reading of the patient’s medical record;
- Physician prescribes a medication that has a harmful interaction with a drug the patient is currently taking due to a negligent reading of the patient’s medical record;
- Pharmacist fills the wrong medication;
- Pharmacist mixes up names on prescriptions;
- Pharmacist fills the wrong about the medication;
- Pharmacist or doctor fail to provide patient with information about risks associated with using the medication;
- Medication has a design defect that can result in patient injury, such as cancer or other serious diseases;
- Medication has a manufacturing defect and has been tainted during production; or
- Medication is distributed to consumers without proper warnings about the risks of use.
Liability for Medication and Pharmaceutical Errors in Chicago
Many different parties could be responsible for medication and pharmaceutical errors in Chicago, such as:
- Prescribing physician or nurse practitioner;
- Pharmacist;
- Designer of the drug;
- Manufacturer of the medication; or
- Marketer or retailer of the medication.
Contact Our Medication and Pharmaceutical Injury Attorneys in Chicago
If you were injured as a result of a medication error or a defective pharmaceutical product, you deserve to file a claim to seek financial compensation. Depending upon the particular facts of your case, a healthcare provider may be responsible for damages, or the maker of the pharmaceutical product could be liable for injuries. Do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our Chicago medical negligence lawyers to find out more about filing a claim. Contact Wais, Vogelstein, Forman, Koch & Norman, LLC for more information about medication and pharmaceutical error claims in Illinois.
