Medication errors breach patient's rights...

The Health and Disability Commissioner has found a breach of patient rights due to a lack of coordination between providers which resulted in medication dosage errors.

Health New Zealand’s (HNZ) lack of communication resulted in inappropriate care.  Matters were not documented nor provided to the patient’s family or GP.  Gaps existed in the ability to access documentation between hospitals and between teams in the same hospital.  This meant that doctors continued an inappropriate earlier high dosage of medication instead of the later lower dosages planned.  Poor record keeping also contributed.

HNZ is to work collaboratively between hospitals regarding information sharing, audit their documentation standards and apologise to the patient’s family (the patient had died in the interim between the treatment and decision).

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