Anesthesiologists in Oklahoma hospitals have a lot of responsibilities in terms of patient safety. According to an associate professor of anesthesiology from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, they are the only medical specialists that write a prescription, procure the drug, fill the drug and administer the drug. All of these actions that are performed by them are done without safety checks from other people.
Not only does the work of anesthesiologists go unchecked, it is often performed at a fast pace. While working in the operating room, anesthesiologists need to fill and administer drugs rapidly, leaving patients at a high risk of being injured by medication errors. According to a study of medication administrations, the rate of medication errors in the OR is 5.3 percent, and nearly all of the errors are preventable.
Studies have shown that medical errors like wrong medication and wrong dosage could be prevented if anesthesiologists use prefilled syringes. Some hospitals such as Mount Sinai have switched to using prefilled syringes. Rather than relying on anesthesiologists to procure and fill drug prescriptions for emergency surgeries, Mount Sinai has its hospital pharmacy handle these tasks. Using prefilled syringes cuts down on preparation time and may improve patient safety.
A medication error in the operating room could cause a patient to be seriously injured. If a patient believes that something went wrong during a surgery, an attorney can help the patient investigate what happened and determine whether medical negligence occurred. If so, the attorney might then file a hospital negligence lawsuit.