Health care facilities are faced with a lot of challenges. For instance, the issue of being understaffed is a big challenge that has a significant effect on the quality of care of the patient. Fewer workers in the health care facility lead to poor quality of care; the most serious challenge is making medical errors in the patient’s care, resulting in serious complications and loss of life. The occurrence of medical errors in health care facilities has led to the development of laws and guiding principles concerning patient care. This essay responds to questions about Emily’s story and Emily’s Law.
Emily Jerry was a two-year-old patient admitted to rainbow children’s hospital in Cleveland after being diagnosed with a yolk sac tumour. The patient, Emily Jerry, responded well to treatment; however, during the last episode of treatment, she was given an overdose of medication that caused her death (Degnan, 2018). The error was caused by wrong documentation where was the medication was recorded as a starter dose.
Emily’s law is legislation governing the minimum requirements for an individual to qualify as a pharmacist. It was originally known as the Ohio senate Bill, but the name was changed to Emily’s law in honor of Emily jerry (Sullivan et al., 2021). This client died due to medical errors caused by the attending pharmacist, who made an error by administering an overdose to the client. The law states the criminal penalties for individuals dealing with pharmacy activities without an official authority or license. Medication and all pharmacy activities are to be conducted by a registered pharmacist, an intern pharmacist, or a pharmacist technician. Emily’s law is a state law; for instance, state law is the law that applies to a specific state, while federal law applies to the whole nation. In this case, the law was applied specifically to employers and pharmacy technicians of Ohio hospital. Therefore, the fact that the law was applied in a single state and institution qualifies to be a state law. The signatory of the regulation into law was Strickland. The law became effective on April eight, 2009.
The medication error that occurred and led to Emily’s death was an administration of Etoposide that was wrongly diluted. The drug is a podophyllotoxin derivative used to treat various types of cancer. The pharmacist gave a starting dose rather than maintaining the dose. A start dose is usually higher and is prescribed when the patient is admitted to the care unit. Besides, how the medication was diluted was wrong (Degnan, 2018). For instance, Etoposide is usually diluted with an isotonic solution of sodium chloride pre-prepared into a giving bag. However, in Emily’s case, the pharmacist filled the intravenous bag with a hypertonic sodium chloride solution containing 23.4% of sodium ions and then added Etoposide. The resultant solution had a higher concentration of sodium ions than the normal range; in this case, the concentration of sodium ions in the resultant solution was 26 times more than the recommended dosage.
The error occurred for various reasons such as understaffing and poor record-keeping and under supervision. Besides, the involved parties were negligent because they did not countercheck. Before administering the medication, it is always good to countercheck it at least three times, but the pharmacist and the hospital staff failed to confirm it. This medical error occurred in Ohio medical pharmacies (Sullivan et al., 2021). The hospital staff who administered the medication to the patient made the error because, as medical practitioners, it is unethical to administer a medication you have not prepared. However, the pharmacist Eric Crop is responsible for the medical error that occurred. Eric Crop was terminated from the institution, his license was taken away, and he was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide. He was sentenced to six months in prison and later put under house arrest for half a year and four hundred hours of serving the community for six months. Besides, Eric Crop had to pay $5000 as charges to the court.
In my opinion, not only was the pharmacist responsible, but the whole system took part in the error. For instance, the poor information and recording system led to wrong documentation. Besides, the few workers may be overburdened by the work leading to physical burnout resulting in poor quality services due to exhaustion. Proper documentation and counterchecking of medication before the administration could have prevented the error from occurring. The legal action taken against the pharmacist was not fair because he was not the only person involved in the error. The medical staff who administered the drug and the person who made the wrong documentation were supposed to be charged alongside the pharmacist.
Emily’s law is not good enough to prevent medical errors. The law affects only pharmacists, yet offering care to patients is a multidisciplinary approach. Other medical practitioners should also have knowledge concerning medications since patients’ care involves a multiple team approach and not only a pharmacist. Emily’s story has changed my perception concerning the profession. For instance, I have learned that a pharmacist needs to be keen when prescribing medication to avoid medication errors that may happen, as in the case of Emily.
As a future pharmacy technician, I would employ various strategies to prevent the occurrence of medical errors. For instance, I will put strategies to monitor vulnerable and highly susceptible patients so that their medication is closely monitored. Besides, encouraging a multidisciplinary approach will be essential in minimizing the medical errors more likely to occur. Teaching patients about their treatment plan and their medications will be significant. They will be able to raise concerns whenever they notice the change in medication and administered dosage.
References
Degnan, D. (2018). CQI: Getting better at getting better. Pharmacy Today, 24(12), 35. https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(18)31663-3/abstract.
Sullivan, D. M., Anderson, D. C., & Cole, J. W. (2021). Pharmacy Professionalism. In Ethics in Pharmacy Practice: A Practical Guide (pp. 75-86). Springer, Cham.
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