Medication Errors Cost Lives

Thousands of Americans lose their lives each year because of medication errors. Some hospitals are trying to prevent medical neglect in the administration of medications through electronic verification systems. With this system a patient wears a bar-coded armband. The nurse scans the patient’s armband before giving a medication and pulls up the patient’s records to verify the medications. The drug is then scanned, the armband scanned again and the patient receives the correct medicine. Electronic medical records are also helping the process. It is an exciting wave of the future and means of providing safer and better patient care to protect against injury, and wrongful death through hospital neglect.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.