Medication Errors Still Occurring in Hospitals

A baby in a Corpus Christi, Texas, hospital neonatal intensive care unit has died after receiving an overdose of the blood thinner heparin. The baby was one of up to 17 babies in a neonatal intensive care unit receiving overdoses heparin. Heparin is an anticoagulant often used to clean the IVs of patients and prevent blood clots from forming in the lines.
The problem with heparin overdoses of infants in hospitals entered the public arena last year when the twins of actor Dennis Quaid almost died after receiving heparin overdoses at a Los Angeles hospital. Since that time, Quaid has become an outspoken advocate of better controls in hospitals to prevent medication errors.
According to reports, nurses discovered the problem Sunday — two days after the medication is believed to have been first administered. A preliminary investigation concluded that the error occurred during the mixing process within the hospital pharmacy.
With the large amount of press that has been given to these types of medication errors during the last year, one has to ask why the hospital did not have procedures in place to ensure that the error did not occur, and why it took so long for it to be discovered.