Medication errors.

• Prescribing: the wrong drug or dose, or a drug that shouldn’t be combined with your other medications or conditions
• Dispensing: a pharmacy fills the wrong medication or strength, or gives incorrect instructions
• Administering: in a hospital or care facility, a drug is given to the wrong patient, or at the wrong dose, time, or route
• Monitoring: a drug that needs regular blood tests or follow-up isn’t checked

• Look-alike or sound-alike drug names that get mixed up
• Decimal-point or unit errors, such as ten times the intended dose
• A documented allergy that was overlooked
• Dangerous drug interactions that weren’t caught
• High-risk medications, such as blood thinners, insulin, and opioids, given or monitored incorrectly

Not every bad reaction is an error. Many medications have known side effects that can happen even when they’re prescribed and taken correctly.

If the problem is with the drug itself, such as a dangerous design or inadequate warnings from the manufacturer, that’s usually a product liability matter rather than medical malpractice. Medication errors are mistakes by the people and facilities involved in your care.

It depends on where the error happened. Responsibility can rest with the prescribing provider, the pharmacist or pharmacy, the nurses who gave the medication, or the hospital or care facility and its medication systems.

• The medication, its bottle, and all packaging and labels
• Pharmacy receipts and printed information sheets
• A list of every medication you were taking at the time
• When you started and stopped the medication, and when symptoms began
• Records of any emergency care or hospital stay that followed