Every day, millions of Americans rely on prescription medications to manage chronic conditions, fight infections, control pain, or recover from surgery. When you hand a prescription to your pharmacist or take a medication administered by a nurse or physician, you trust that the right drug will be delivered in the right dose, with the right instructions. Unfortunately, that trust is violated far too often. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), medication errors cause at least one death every day in the United States and injure approximately 1.3 million people annually. When these preventable mistakes happen in Houston-area hospitals, clinics, or pharmacies, patients have the right to seek compensation.
The Scope of the Problem
The U.S. National Library of Medicine estimates that between 7,000 and 9,000 Americans die each year as a result of medication errors. According to the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), medication errors are one of the most common categories of medical malpractice claims. With nearly 7,000 different prescription drugs in use in the United States, the opportunities for error at every stage of the prescribing and dispensing process are significant.
The costs extend well beyond individual harm. Preventable medication errors are estimated to cost the U.S. economy more than $177 billion every year, accounting for hospitalizations, additional treatments, disability, and productivity losses.
Common Types of Medication and Pharmacy Errors
Medication errors can occur at many points along the treatment chain — from the physician’s office to the pharmacy to the hospital bedside. The most common types include: a physician prescribing the wrong medication for the patient’s condition; prescribing the correct medication but at the wrong dose, frequency, or duration; failing to identify dangerous drug interactions with the patient’s existing medications; prescribing a drug to which the patient is known to be allergic; a pharmacist misreading a prescription and dispensing a different drug; a pharmacist filling the correct drug but at the wrong dosage; pharmacy staff giving one patient’s prescription to a different patient; and nurses or other clinical staff administering medications incorrectly during inpatient care.
A 2022 Texas case illustrates just how catastrophic these errors can be. A family sued a Fort Worth hospital after a patient was injected with tranexamic acid — a drug used to control bleeding — instead of a spinal anesthetic during surgery. The error caused permanent brain damage and paralysis. A jury assigned 65% of liability to the hospital and 35% to the anesthesiology practice involved.
The Duty of Care in Medication Management
Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and hospitals each owe a duty of care to patients with respect to medication management. For physicians, that duty includes selecting the appropriate drug for the patient’s diagnosis, reviewing the patient’s current medications for interaction risks, checking for known allergies, and prescribing the correct dose and instructions. For pharmacists, the duty includes accurately reading and filling prescriptions, verifying dosages, labeling correctly, checking for interaction and allergy flags in the patient’s profile, and counseling patients about their medications.
When any of these professionals — or the institutions that employ them — fail to meet the applicable standard of care and a patient is harmed as a result, that failure can constitute medical malpractice.
Who Can Be Held Liable?
In a medication error case, potentially liable parties may include the prescribing physician, the pharmacy and/or the individual pharmacist, the hospital or clinic where the medication was administered, nurses or medical assistants who dispensed or administered the drug, and — in cases involving defective drug formulations or labeling — the drug manufacturer. A thorough investigation by an experienced medical malpractice attorney can identify all responsible parties and pursue appropriate claims against each.
Proving a Medication Error Malpractice Claim in Texas
To succeed on a medication error malpractice claim in Texas, a patient must establish the four elements of medical negligence: a professional duty of care owed to the patient; a breach of that duty (i.e., the deviation from the standard of care); causation (the breach caused the patient’s injury); and quantifiable damages. Expert testimony is virtually always required and must be provided in a written report within 120 days of filing suit under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 74.
The statute of limitations for medication error malpractice claims in Texas is generally two years from the date of the error or from when the patient reasonably discovered the harm. An absolute 10-year statute of repose also applies.
Recoverable damages in medication error cases may include past and future medical expenses to treat the harm caused by the error, lost wages and loss of earning capacity, pain and suffering (subject to the non-economic damages cap), emotional distress, and wrongful death damages when a fatal error occurs.
What to Do If You Suspect a Medication Error
If you believe you or a loved one has been harmed by a medication error, save any remaining medication and its packaging — this is critical physical evidence. Seek immediate medical evaluation to address the harm and document it in the medical record. Request complete records from your prescribing physician, the dispensing pharmacy, and any hospital or clinic involved in administering the medication.
Do not discuss your suspicions with the healthcare provider or pharmacy before consulting an attorney. Contact Business and Family Lawyers for a free, confidential consultation. We represent patients throughout Houston, the Greater Houston metropolitan area, and across Texas in medication error and pharmacy negligence cases. Our firm handles these matters on a contingency fee basis, so there is no cost to you unless we obtain a recovery.