Medication errors are one of the most frequent and serious forms of neglect suffered by residents of long-term care facilities. Families of nursing home residents from Trenton, Cherry Hill, Morristown, Nutley and all over New Jersey want to know when a nursing home can be held responsible for medication errors.
At Pellettieri Rabstein & Altman, our nursing home abuse and negligence attorneys have been fighting for vulnerable residents and their families since 1929. If your loved one has suffered from a serious medication error at a New Jersey nursing home, you may have a claim of significant value.
What Are Medication Errors in Nursing Homes?
A medication error is any error made by any person involved in the drug use process as part of their professional or other responsibilities (including but not limited to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, and patients) involved in prescribing, dispensing or administering medicines that result in an avoidable adverse event in terms of harm to the patient.
- Wrong medication – a resident is given a drug prescribed for another patient
- Wrong dose – too much or too little of the correct medication
- Wrong timing – a medication given too early, too late, or skipped entirely
- Wrong route – a drug meant to be swallowed is given by injection, or vice versa
- Dangerous drug interactions – staff fails to check whether two medications interact harmfully
- Failure to monitor – no follow-up to assess a resident’s reaction to a new drug
- Medication deprivation – withholding a necessary medication altogether
Medication errors are typically categorized into dispensing errors, administration errors, and what is often referred to as “medication deprivation”. Sadly, the failure of a nursing home to administer required medications has led to the deaths of residents in New Jersey.
At PR&A Law, we have successfully pursued claims for the wrongful deaths of nursing home residents, and recovered significant compensation for the families of those residents who were subjected to these egregious acts of neglect. For example, we recently settled a wrongful death case for $750,000. The case involved the wrongful death of a resident who received neglectful care from the nursing home after he was deprived of required medication.
Why Medication Errors Happen in Nursing Homes
Medication errors occur more frequently and are more likely to occur as a result of errors caused by systemic problems within a long-term care facility rather than in isolation.
When a nursing home is not staffing adequate numbers of nurses and or aides per resident to provide safe care 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the staff are put in a situation where they are not able to complete the administration of all of the medications as they are scheduled and document all of the medications that have been given to each resident. There are many situations that can occur that result in errors of medication including selecting the wrong medication from the correct resident’s medication cart, missing a dose of a resident’s medications and failing to document the administration of a resident’s medications.
Inadequate training:
The nursing home staff may not have received proper pharmaceutical training. An aide may dispense the medications in a long-term care facility but an aide is not necessarily knowledgeable as to drug interactions, dosage times, and potential adverse effects of medications.
Inadequate record-keeping:
This can include the use of outdated MARs (Medication Administration Records), charts that are written in such a way that are subject to misinterpretation, and failure to update a physician’s orders in a timely manner. Errors such as a resident receiving the wrong medication or the wrong amount of medication can occur as a result of these practices.
High resident-to-staff ratios:
While New Jersey nursing homes are required to meet minimum staffing levels, meeting the minimum is not the same as providing adequate care to residents. Especially those on complex medication regimens.
Inadequate oversight of prescribing physicians:
An error can occur prior to a nurse even grabbing the cart with the medications. An ordering physician who fails to fully review a patient’s medical history, may prescribe an inappropriately prescribed medication or incorrect dosage. Furthermore, the nursing facility may fail to identify the error.
New Jersey Law and a Nursing Home’s Duty of Care
New Jersey nursing home operators are required by law to meet a host of responsibilities to their residents. The New Jersey Nursing Home Responsibilities and Rights of Residents Act (N.J.S.A. 30:13-1 et seq.) requires that nursing home residents receive adequate and appropriate medical care as ordered by their physicians and other healthcare professionals, including the administration of any prescribed medications. Even the federal Nursing Home Reform Act, passed by Congress to improve the care provided to the nation’s seniors in nursing homes, sets a floor for meeting the responsibilities of nursing home operators to ensure that all seniors in nursing homes receive the highest quality care to achieve their highest physical, medical, and psychosocial well-being.
When a nursing home fails to meet the standards that are set for them, they can be held liable for any harm that is caused to a resident. There are many ways in which a nursing home can be held liable for harm to a resident. As a starting point, the nursing home can be held liable as a direct matter of fault for failing to meet standards of care for its residents. This can include things such as hiring and supervising staff that are not qualified to provide care to residents, failing to train staff adequately to meet the needs of its residents, and for failing to implement adequate systems for managing medications.
In addition to a staff member’s failure to give the correct dosage of a medication, a nursing home could be held responsible for residents’ injuries or complications as a result of the errors for example, a facility could be found negligent if it failed to hire adequate staff; if its staff were not properly trained to administer medication; if there were not enough adequate staff on duty at the right times; and for failures in implementing a quality system for the administration of medications.
Additional legal claims can be asserted against the nursing home chain and/or the corporate operator of the nursing home, such as claims for corporate negligence. A facility can be found liable for errors caused by systemic failures that contribute to the likelihood of medication errors such as:
- flawed policies and procedures
- cost reduction measures that result in inadequate staffing
- insufficient quality control measures
What Families Should Watch For
Most medication errors have a delayed detection and result in varying degrees of increasing harm over time. Families visiting their loved ones in the nursing homes in New Jersey should be looking for:
- Unexplained changes in behavior, alertness, or mood
- New or worsening confusion, drowsiness, or agitation
- Sudden physical decline of a resident and no clear cause for the decline
- Allergic reactions to medications or sudden adverse effects from medications
- A resident tells you that he or she did not receive his/her expected medications
- Discrepancies between what a resident was supposed to receive and what actually was given as documented in the medication administration records that you review upon request
Under New Jersey law, residents or their authorized representatives have the right to receive copies of and review their medical records. If you suspect something is wrong, don’t hesitate to ask.
Nursing Homes in New Jersey
There are hundreds of licensed nursing care facilities in New Jersey, many of which are situated in large elderly and disabled populations in densely populated counties throughout the State. These facilities are located in the same communities where the PR&A Law offices are situated – Mercer, Burlington, Morris, Essex and Camden Counties. As New Jersey’s population continues to age, it is not uncommon for many of the residents of these facilities to be on complex regimens of medications that are administered on a daily basis.
The Division of Consumer Affairs, Department of Health oversees the licensing and inspection of all of the nursing home facilities in New Jersey. However, while imposing fines and forced programs of correction upon facilities not meeting required minimum standards, and in extreme cases even pulling Medicare and/or Medicaid funding from a facility, the various state and federal agencies cannot compensate for the serious injuries and even death caused by a medication error. Recovery for such harm is often best left to the civil justice system and an experienced nursing home negligence attorney.
Pursuing a Claim: What Compensation May Be Available
If a medication error harmed your loved one, a successful nursing home negligence claim in New Jersey can recover compensation for:
- Medical expenses related to the harm caused by the error
- Pain and suffering
- Disability or loss of function
- Reduced quality of life
- In cases of wrongful death, compensation for the family’s losses
New Jersey has a two year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. Therefore, time is of the essence. Families have two years from the date of the negligent act or from the date that harm is discovered to bring a lawsuit. If no lawsuit is filed within the two year time frame, the family’s claim will be forever barred and will be deemed to be extinguished. Therefore, it is extremely important to seek the advice of an attorney as soon as possible.
Attorney Spotlights:
Sherri L. Warfel
Sherri L. Warfel is the Chair of the Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect practice at Pellettieri Rabstein & Altman and one of New Jersey’s most experienced advocates for elderly and vulnerable individuals harmed in care facilities. With more than 25 years of practice focused exclusively on nursing home abuse and neglect, she has settled and tried hundreds of cases on behalf of residents who suffered pressure wounds, preventable falls, infections, medication errors, abuse, and wrongful death.
Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Civil Trial Attorney, Ms. Warfel brings the full weight of her litigation experience to confront nursing homes and medical facilities that fail the people in their care. She has served on the Board of Governors for the New Jersey Association for Justice and has been a featured speaker and panelist at NJAJ seminars on nursing home litigation. From 2008 to 2012, she was recognized as a New Jersey Super Lawyer.
Ms. Warfel earned her undergraduate degree from The College of New Jersey and her J.D. from Rutgers School of Law in 1998, where she received the Richard L. Barbour Award for public service. She went on to clerk for the Honorable Linda R. Feinberg, Assignment Judge of the Superior Court, before joining PR&A and building her practice representing victims of nursing home negligence.
Steven J. Rogers, Jr.
Steven J. Rogers, Jr. is a civil trial attorney in PR&A Law’s Personal Injury and Nursing Home departments, exclusively representing injured individuals in complex civil litigation. His practice encompasses nursing home malpractice, medical malpractice, wrongful death, and premises liability, and he brings the same uncompromising advocacy to every case.
A graduate of Rutgers Law School, Mr. Rogers earned the Dean’s Pro Bono Publico Award for his leadership through the Rutgers Voters’ Rights Project. Following graduation, he served as the first judicial law clerk to the Honorable Thomas J. Buck, J.S.C., in the Civil Division of the Middlesex County Superior Court, an experience that sharpened his command of civil litigation from the ground up. He went on to build experience at several respected plaintiff’s firms before joining PR&A.
In nursing home cases, Mr. Rogers holds negligent facilities accountable for the harm they cause to residents, whether through inadequate staffing, improper care, or failures that lead to serious injury or death. He is admitted to practice in the State and District Courts of New Jersey.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a medication error in a nursing home?
A medication error in a nursing home is defined as any preventable error made in the prescribing, dispensing or administration of medications to residents of nursing homes. These errors can involve a variety of aspects including but not limited to: the wrong medication, the wrong dose of a prescribed medication, the incorrect time that a medication is to be taken, a failure to administer a prescribed medication, and a failure to verify for potential interactions with other of a resident’s medications.
Can a nursing home be held responsible for a medication error?
Yes. If a medication error is caused by the nursing home’s negligence then the nursing home can be held liable for the error. A lawsuit can be brought against the nursing home for its own independent failures and/or for the failures of its employees.
What if the error was made by the doctor who wrote the prescription?
Whether a physician who practices at a nursing home is an employee of the facility or an independent contractor can impact who is responsible for the prescribing of medication to residents of the nursing home. In cases where a resident of a nursing home has been the victim of a medication error caused by a prescribing error, a claim for medical malpractice can be brought against the physician who prescribed the wrong medication. However, the nursing home where the resident was a patient can also be held liable for the errors of its staff in failing to properly administer the prescribed medications or in failing to properly monitor a resident for side effects caused by the medications that he or she has been prescribed. In such cases, a claim for negligence can be brought against the nursing home.
What proof is needed to establish a claim of a medication error that caused harm to a resident in a nursing home?
In order to prove a claim for a medication error caused by a nursing home error, there must be proof from medical records, i.e. the resident’s and/or decedent’s medical records, and the Medication Administration Record(s) (“MARs”) for the error and subsequent damage. An expert in the field of Nursing Home Administration or in a medical specialty related to the error(s) must provide an opinion as to whether the nursing home’s conduct fell below the standard of care for similar nursing homes.
Is my loved one’s passing from a medication error at a nursing home worthy of a Wrongful Death Claim in New Jersey?
A medication error that causes the death of a resident can give rise to a claim for wrongful death by the decedent’s estate and by surviving family members and/or domestic partners of the decedent. These types of claims seek to recover medical expenses, funeral expenses and the loss of the decedent’s companionship and services, among other things.
How long will a New Jersey Nursing Home negligence case take to settle?
The amount of time to allow for a resolution of a nursing home negligence case varies from case to case. In many instances the facility’s insurance carrier will attempt to settle the case prior to trial. The attorneys at PR&A Law work diligently to provide the best possible representation to our clients in the shortest period of time. While some cases may require the filing of a lawsuit and a trial, we will continue to fight for fair compensation on your behalf until a resolution is reached.
Does it cost anything to speak with a nursing home negligence attorney at PR&A Law?
No. The cost to speak with a qualified nursing home negligence attorney at PR&A Law is free and there is no obligation to engage our services. We take nursing home negligence cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning there is no charge to you unless we obtain compensation for you.
Contact a New Jersey Nursing Home Negligence Attorney Today
Nursing home medication errors are preventable. When the negligence of a nursing home causes injury to a vulnerable elder or results in the elder’s death, the elder’s family deserves an explanation and accountability from those responsible. The lawyers at Pellettieri Rabstein & Altman have experience, resources and determination to go up against the nursing home as well as its insurer.
From offices in Lawrence Township, Cherry Hill, Morristown, Nutley and Trenton, PR&A Law represents families from all over New Jersey. Schedule a no-cost, no-obligation consultation online or by telephone. We only get paid if we win.
