Law Exam 3

• negligens
• type of tort

unintentional act that causes harm

compensate victim and deter careless and irresponsible acts

• duty
• breach of duty
• causation
• damages

all 4 elements with a preponderance of evidence

requires degree of care that a reasonable prudent pharmacist would use under similar condition

mechanical type acts (not requiring professional judgement)

• breach of duty per law
• expert witnesses not generally required

plaintiff must prove negligence was substantial factor in the harm caused

extent to which the defendant should be held liable for the conduct

• loss of income
• medical expenses
• pain and suffering

• awarded for willful or reckless negligence
• considered punishment

common law rule completely barring recovery

• statutory
• requires court base judgement award on relative negligence of each party

• claim must be within a specified period of time
• discovery rule defers time until injury is discovered
• statute or repose limits discovery period time

employer

cause employers to hire and train competent emloyees

employer and or employee

from processing rx accurately to improving pt outcomes

• patient oriented
• not physician oriented

• pharmacist has no legal duty
• pharmacist duty is to accurately dispense rx as written

• relationship
• foreseeablility
• public policy

• pharmacist patient relationship is independent
• patient relies on pharmacist because of knowlege

pharmacist only expected to warn of foreseeable risk

• prevent drug abuse
• reinforce physician patient relationship
• decrease health care costs

• special instructions by mfg to warn
• contraindications
• special knowlege by pharmacist of patient's condition

it voluntarily assumes a funtion that it was under no legal obligation to assume and a patient relies on that function to his/her detriment

appropriate systems for order processing and to detect errors before a patient is harmed

punitive damages for recklessness or conscious disreguard for safety of pt

board disciplinary action

reduce the incidence of errors thus protecting patients

quality systems

• maintain policies and procedures related to erros
• implement incident reporting system where errors are documented, investigated and acted on
• periodically evaulate employees
• continually asses and improve quality of system

• pharmacist should tell pt error was made
• adequate documentation
• application of general risk management rules to error

• individual insurance even if covered by employer
• exclude intentional violations
• needs to cover compounding, blood testing, immunizations, initiation or adjusting therapy pursuant to collaborative practice.