A breakdown in policy and procedure at St. Agnes Healthcare and Rehab Center on South Wabash in Chicago led to a resident getting a dangerous and inappropriate medication for four weeks.
Once a month, nursing homes must engage a licensed pharmacist to review each resident’s list of medications and look for medication errors. Because a nursing home resident might have multiple medical specialists prescribing medications, it’s possible that a medical professional might not be aware of what medications another has ordered. The only person who must know each and every prescribed medication is the pharmacist who receives and fills every prescription.
The pharmacist reviews each medication and looks for potential side effects and dangerous combinations of drugs. Earlier this year, the pharmacist for St. Agnes Healthcare and Rehab noticed a prescribed medication that was known to cause seizures in residents with histories of seizures.
Obviously, a seizure is a dangerous incident for anyone. But for frail nursing home residents, seizures are extremely life threatening. Nursing home falls often prove utterly devastating for nursing home residents. A seizure that takes place while a resident is using a walker can result in a deadly or debilitating fall.
According to St. Agnes records, the nursing home received the notification from the pharmacist and passed the information to the nurse who supervised the floor. The nurse is supposed to call the resident’s attending physician (primary doctor) and review the finding.
Somewhere, the chain broke, and the attending physician was never notified. For over four weeks, the medication error continued and the resident received this unsafe medication. Only after the Illinois Department of Public Health inspector investigation began was the attending physician notified and the medication errors stopped.
If you have a loved one who has been injured by a medication error in an Illinois nursing home, contact our Chicago nursing home lawyers for a free and confidential evaluation of your case. At my law offices we have experience investigating all kinds of medication errors in nursing homes, and we know how to find the truth