“The rate of serious medication errors that occur outside of health care facilities doubled from 2000 to 2012, a new study finds.” - Gillian Blease/Getty Images

by Courtney Columbus

“When people take medicine at home, mistakes happen.

“Some people end up taking the wrong dose of a medication or the wrong pill. Sometimes, they don’t wait long enough before taking a second dose.

“Other times, it’s a health professional who’s at fault. A pharmacist might have dispensed a medication at the wrong concentration, for example.

“These kinds of mistakes are on the rise, according to a study published Monday in the journal Clinical Toxicology.

“The researchers looked at a small subset of the medication errors that happen in the U.S. every year. The FDA estimates that about 1.3 million people are injured by medication errors annually in the U.S.”

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