Medication errors can be caused by anyone who is responsible for prescribing, distributing, maintaining, or providing medication to a patient.
Medication errors can start at the source if the pharmacist who is responsible for distributing your medication makes a mistake. A pharmacist can cause harm to a patient if they confuse the prescriptions of multiple patients or otherwise administer an incorrect medication to a patient. Providing a patient with an incorrect dosage of the correct medication can also cause significant harm.
Doctors can make similar mistakes while administering medication to a patient. Although a pharmacist may do everything correctly, a doctor could mix up prescriptions or give an incorrect type or dosage of medication to a patient. Before administering medication, a doctor could endanger a patient by ordering a prescription of a medication that a patient does not need. This can happen because of carelessness, or because the doctor fails to correctly evaluates the needs of the patient and any potential issues.