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

+Practice

In print

PRACTICE

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

Practice archive

How to Treat

+How to treat

Thyroid nodules

Otolaryngologist, head and neck surgeon Francis T. Hall discusses the evaluation of thyroid nodules, which primarily aims to determine the likelihood of malignancy. He then reviews the treatment of thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer, including recent advances in management

Wednesday 30 April 2025, 12:50 AM