Pharmacy Error Blamed For Death Of Nursing Home Patient After She Receives Incorrect Medication

An error by an institutional pharmacy, HealthDirect, is responsible for the death of a 94-year old patient at a New York nursing home.  According to New York Health Department reports, the woman was to receive methimazole, to treat her thyroid condition, but pharmacists at HealthDirect filled the prescription with metolazone– a significantly different medication used to treat blood pressure.

Pharmacy Error Blamed For Death Of Nursing Home Patient In addition to the error my by the pharmacy, additional errors were made by Cayuga County Nursing Home when they administered the wrong medication to the woman over the course of 18 days.  Shortly after the woman received the incorrect drugs, she died due heart problems brought about by kidney failure.

Following the woman’s death, her family initiated a lawsuit against the nursing home due to the errors they made with respect to administering the wrong medication.  In the course of the lawsuit, it only was then discovered that the pharmacy errors were also likely to have contributed to her death.

Changes Following A Lawsuit

As a nursing home lawyer, many families repeatedly tell me how important it is for them to see that the offending facility implement necessary changes to prevent similar incidents from occurring to others.  While this may seem like somewhat of an idealistic approach, facilities may be quick to implement necessary changes following a claim or lawsuit brought against them by an injured party.

If for no other reason than just plain bad business, I have seen staffing and safety changes implemented at nursing homes shortly after a lawsuit was filed against them.

In this case, the pharmacy– HealthDirect, a division of Kinney Drugs, has quickly implemented changes such as: tablet identification, bar-coding prescriptions and using a diagnosis on prescriptions so pharmacists have an indication of the drugs usage.

Learn more about the laws applicable to New York nursing homes here.
Click on the links for information on nursing homes in New York , Buffalo and Rochester

Related:

‘Significant Medication Errors’ Discovered In Nursing Home Following Investigation Related To Patient Injury & Death

Improper Drug Dosage, Wrong Medication, Interactions With Other Drugs…. May Be The Result Of Pharmaceutical Malpractice

Kinney division sued over drug mix-up, Watertown Daily Times by Martha Ellen, December 19, 2010.

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One response to “Pharmacy Error Blamed For Death Of Nursing Home Patient After She Receives Incorrect Medication”

  1. Kathy Rhodes says:

    I recently left a Assisted Living facility in Georgia. I have the proof that another supervisor-med tech was not only not giving medication but was throwing them away. When I found the medications in the trash on the med cart, I had two other co-workers witness the meds before I removed them. I had the two co-workers fill out a witness report, made copies of the meds in the packages and turned them in to the Resident Care Rep. and also copies to the ED. The employee still remains on the med cart. I have reported this to the State.

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