What Has To Happen To Get This To Stop?
Why do things like this keep happening? Why can't we stop this?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/09/heparin.babies/?iref=hpmostpop
posted by Brandy at 3:50:00 PM
Getting Through Life
- The journal of a crazy, previously infertile, soul just trying to make it through and raise a family along the way.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/09/heparin.babies/?iref=hpmostpop
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5 Comments:
Because people are so stupid. That's the only answer I can find.
Really, the drug companies need to mark baby drugs and adult drugs in a CLEARLY different way... somehow we have to make it so obvious that it's nearly impossible to mix them up. Until then, we'll keep reading stories like this.
In response to Melinda's comment, this isn't about the drug company. Heparin isn't a baby drug vs. an adult drug and it isn't packaged separately by the drug company for babies vs. adults.
If I remember correctly, in the Quaid case, it was a nursing error, where the nurse took out an adult dose from a cabinet. Here, they are attributing it to a pharmacy error. What happens is that the pharmacy in the hospital makes the syringe. So it's more likely that the hospital pharmacy needs a better, clearer labeling system to ensure that the infant doses are differentiated from adult doses. Depending on the size of the hospital and the pharmacy department, this may or may not be easy to implement.
My husband is a manager in the pharmacy department in a major metropolitan hospital, so I know how HIS department would handle something like this, but I don't know how another, smaller hospital would.
FYI, I sent the article to my husband and he got really upset about it. He said this is a known problem and hospitals should be taking steps to prevent these problems. In the Quaid case, a bar-coding system put in place would have prevented the problem.
Based on the information in the article, however, a different problem existed in this case - it was a mixing error in the pharmacy, if the article is to be trusted, in which case the bar-coding system wouldn't have helped.
It's very upsetting, though.
Thanks for the comment on my running post. You'll know which one I am in the race: go to about mile 7, and I'll be the one in last place (or close to it), huffing and puffing along but sure as heck glad to be there! LOL Remember that I'll be AFTER all the little old ladies that have passed me, right before the 7-month-old that just learned how to crawl! ;)
D
You are so close to the end of this pg - we demand updates! :)
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