Did a three-year investigation into a drug overdose make patients safer?

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Did a three-year investigation into a drug overdose make patients safer?

Gaeline Phipps

Wednesday 13 September 2017, 11:09 AM

The doctor tried to simplify the patient’s pain management

A GP’s three-year ordeal over a dangerous prescribing error has been a lost opportunity for reducing iatrogenic injury, as Wellington barrister Gaeline Phipps explains

To address the question in the title, this column revisits a case decided in 2015 by the health and disability commissioner (HDC), which I presented a

1. Institute of Medicine. To err is human: building a safer health system. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2000. https://doi.org/10.17226/9728. Available online at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9728.html

2. Reason J. Human error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

3. Sayers YM, Armstrong P, Hanley K. Prescribing errors in general practice: a prospective study. Eur J Gen Pract 2009;15(2):81–83.

4. Avery T, Barber N, Ghaleb M et al. Investigating the prevalence and causes of prescribing errors in general practice: The PRACtICe Study. A report for the GMC, May 2012. Available online at http://bit.ly/1ByzZrT

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