by Needle & Ellenberg, P.A.
If a Florida hospital or healthcare provider administered the wrong medication, the wrong dose, or failed to catch a dangerous interaction, and a patient was seriously harmed or killed, you may have a medical malpractice claim.
Medication errors can be among the most preventable causes of hospital patient harm. They may arise from a cascade of system and individual failures across prescribing, transcription, pharmacy verification, dispensing, and bedside administration. When a fatal error involves a high-alert medication and the hospital cannot produce documentation that required safeguards were implemented, that may be strong evidence of institutional negligence.
Needle & Ellenberg, P.A. has decades of experience litigating complex medical negligence cases involving pharmacy and medication safety chain failures.
Why Choose Needle & Ellenberg, P.A.
Founding partners Andrew Needle and Andrew Ellenberg bring more than 70 years of combined experience in Florida medical negligence and plaintiffs’ injury law. Both handle plaintiffs’ injury and death cases exclusively.
Practice Focus
Andrew Ellenberg focuses on plaintiffs’ injury and medical negligence cases, with practice concentrations that include anesthesia complications, medication-related injuries, and hospital system liability. He earned his J.D. cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law in 1988. Martindale-Hubbell rates him AV Preeminent. Florida Super Lawyers has listed him every year since 2005, and The Best Lawyers in America has listed him every year since 2009 for plaintiffs’ medical malpractice and personal injury work.
Andrew Needle is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar. His practice concentrations include complex hospital system negligence, medication safety chain failures, and cases involving pharmacy and nursing communication breakdowns. He holds a J.D. cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law (1977) and a B.S. from Cornell University (1974). He is a charter member of the Miami chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates. Best Lawyers in America named him “Lawyer of the Year” for Medical Malpractice Law, Plaintiffs, in Miami for 2020 and 2025.
Verdicts and Settlements
Needle & Ellenberg, P.A. has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients across all practice areas, including multiple eight-figure results in medical malpractice matters. Many of the healthcare cases involved birth injuries, delayed diagnosis, surgical errors, anesthesia complications, and health system negligence. Our fees are contingent. You pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.
What Our Clients Say
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“I am writing to share my heartfelt review and gratitude for the exceptional service I received from Needle & Ellenberg. This firm has fought hard to ensure we were compensated, and their efforts have truly changed our lives forever.”
– Ketteline Fleurizard
Types of Medication Error Cases We Handle in Florida
The Institute of Medicine’s “To Err is Human” report estimated more than 7,000 U.S. deaths annually from medication errors. The categories below cover the clinical contexts where we may see medication error allegations most often in Florida.
- Pharmacy-to-nurse communication failures. In one documented Florida AHCA investigation at Brandon Regional Hospital, a pharmacist identified a safety concern with a medication order and entered a safety rewrite, a critical clinical modification. That rewrite was never communicated to the bedside nurse before administration. The nurse administered the drug based on the original order, without knowledge of the pharmacist’s safety modification. The patient died. The hospital’s corrective action plan included implementation of a morning huddle protocol designed to improve communication of pharmacy safety issues to clinical staff. A pharmacy safety rewrite that never reaches the bedside may be a system failure, not merely an individual error.
- High-alert medication safeguard failures. Drugs designated by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices as high-alert may include insulin, anticoagulants, opioids, and concentrated electrolytes. These can require additional safeguards including two-nurse independent double-checks before administration, special labeling, distinct storage, and additional pharmacist verification. When a fatal error involves a high-alert drug and the hospital cannot produce documentation that required safeguards were implemented, that may be strong evidence of institutional negligence.
- Wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong route. The Five Rights of Medication Safety, Right Patient, Right Drug, Right Dose, Right Route, and Right Time, can be fundamental. Independent verification of all five may be required before administration. Bar-code medication administration technology is designed to enforce this verification, and BCMA override logs may be important evidence when an override was used without documentation of the reason.
- Anticoagulant and insulin dosing errors. Anticoagulant mistakes can cause catastrophic bleeding. Insulin and glucose-management failures can trigger severe hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia. These can be high-alert categories that should never be administered without independent double-check documentation.
- Opioid and sedation errors. Sedation and opioid errors can lead to respiratory depression, oxygen loss, cardiac arrest, falls, and brain injury. A patient who becomes abruptly sleepy, confused, short of breath, or hypotensive after a medication event may need immediate reassessment and intervention, not a standard monitoring pathway.
- Look-alike, sound-alike drug mix-ups. ISMP maintains a list of drug name pairs that have caused patient harm due to confusion. Hospitals may be required to implement safeguards including distinctive labeling, physical separation in storage, and electronic screening for look-alike, sound-alike drugs. If a look-alike, sound-alike error occurred despite these risks being well-known and the hospital not having implemented required safeguards, that may be evidence of institutional negligence.
- Allergy and contraindication screening failures. A medication ordered or administered despite a documented allergy or known contraindication may almost always be a system failure. Pharmacy clinical screening, electronic health record alerts, and nursing verification all exist to catch these errors.
The Medication Safety Chain
Safe medication administration may require that each of several system components function correctly. First, the prescribing physician should enter an order that is clinically appropriate, complete, and legible. Second, the pharmacist should review the order for drug interactions, dosing appropriateness, contraindications, and allergy conflicts before dispensing. Third, the dispensing system should deliver the correct drug in the correct form to the correct patient location. Fourth, the nurse should perform independent verification of the drug, dose, route, patient identity, and any special administration instructions before administering.
At each step, a properly functioning system should catch errors introduced by prior steps. A fatal medication error may frequently reflect the simultaneous failure of multiple safeguards, not a single individual mistake.
Florida Legal Requirements for Medication Error Malpractice
Standard of Care
Florida law defines the standard of care as what a reasonably prudent health care provider would have done under the circumstances. The standard is specialty-specific. What is expected of a radiologist reading a scan is not what is expected of a primary care physician, and neither is what is expected of an emergency physician evaluating acute symptoms. That specialty framing matters when multiple providers across multiple encounters contributed to the injury.
In Florida, pharmacy negligence, including failure to screen for drug interactions, dispensing the wrong medication, or failing to communicate a safety concern to prescribing physicians and nurses, can be an independent basis for liability. A pharmacist’s safety rewrite that is never communicated to the bedside nurse may raise questions about both the pharmacist’s communication and the hospital’s system design.
Hospital Liability for System Design
A hospital can be responsible for its pharmacy’s failure to catch and communicate an error. The hospital can be responsible for a prescribing physician. A hospital should have multiple layers of safety systems, from medication ordering through administration, to safeguard against medication errors. If those systems do not exist, or the hospital does not assure they are implemented, the hospital and others can be responsible for medication errors that harm or kill patients.
Evidence and Electronic Health Records
Modern EHR systems may create detailed logs of every prescribing, pharmacy review, dispensing, and administration event, including timestamps and user identifications. These logs can be important evidence in medication error cases. If the EHR shows that a pharmacist flagged an issue, but the flag was cleared without documentation of resolution, or that a BCMA override was used without documentation of the reason, those records may support the plaintiff’s case. Hospitals must ensure that records are created and maintained in accordance with laws and regulations, or they may be subject to claims for spoliation of evidence.
Statute of Limitations and Presuit Notice
Florida imposes strict deadlines on medical malpractice claims, and missing the deadlines can result in a potentially viable case being barred from court. Our lawyers can help you determine whether your potential case is within Florida’s statute of limitations.
Before any medical malpractice lawsuit can be filed in court, Florida law requires that the Claimant send the potential defendant healthcare providers a Notice of Intent, after which there is a 90-day presuit screening period for the exchange of information between the parties. With rare exception, the Claimant’s attorney must include with the Notice of Intent a verified affidavit(s), from a qualified expert(s), who under oath says what were the actions and/or omissions of the potential defendant healthcare provider(s) that caused injury and damage to the Claimant.
What Damages Are Recoverable in Florida Medication Error Cases?
Economic Damages
Economic damages can include the financial losses that were sustained and/or that reasonably will be suffered in the future, due to the malpractice. These can include lost wages, diminished earning capacity, past and future care, treatment, therapies and services. These can include the cost of additional treatment required because of the error, extended hospitalizations, rehabilitation, long-term care, lost wages, and diminished earning capacity. In cases causing anoxic brain injury from respiratory suppression or catastrophic bleeding from an anticoagulant error, future economic damages and life-care planning costs may run into the millions.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages include pain, suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, scarring and disfigurement since the time of the alleged malpractice and into the future. While there was once a limit on the amount that could be recovered for this category of damages, those caps were overruled by Florida’s highest court. Some healthcare providers claim that the caps on non-economic damages still apply to a certain category of claimants who receive health insurance through Medicaid, but this is regularly disputed by lawyers for victims of malpractice. Florida’s high court has not yet ruled on this issue.
Wrongful Death Damages
When a medication error results in death, Florida’s Wrongful Death Act may control recovery. Surviving spouses, children under the age of 25, and a small category of other family members may recover lost support, lost companionship, and mental pain and suffering.
Florida’s Wrongful Death Act contains a significant restriction that applies only to medical negligence cases. Under Florida’s wrongful death statute, children of the deceased who are not under 25, and parents of a child who is not under 25 and unmarried, cannot recover non-economic damages when the death was caused by medical malpractice. This law often referred to as Florida’s “Free Kill” law is a sad and unfortunate reality for people who have lost loved ones due to malpractice, but fall within a legal protection that exists only for healthcare providers.
Contact Needle & Ellenberg, P.A.
If you believe a Florida healthcare provider caused serious harm to you or a family member through a hospital medication error, the first step is a free case evaluation. Medical malpractice cases are fact-intensive and deadline-driven. Early review by experienced counsel makes a difference in what the records show and what the timeline preserves.
We offer free, no-obligation case evaluations. Our staff speaks Spanish, and we represent clients in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, and throughout Florida. Contact us to schedule your consultation. There is no fee unless we recover compensation for you.