Medical Malpractice
This page is about insulin overdose medical malpractice lawsuits. Our lawyers examine which insulin overdose lawsuits have the most viable claims. We also examine settlement compensation payouts and verdicts in insulin overdose lawsuits.
Our lawyers are based in Maryland, but we handle insulin overdose malpractice claims involving brain injuries or death nationwide. If you have a potential claim, call us at 800-553-8082 or get a free online consultation.
Insulin and Diabetes
Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps the body convert sugar, or glucose, from food into energy. After we eat, insulin is released to encourage sugar from the bloodstream to move into cells. People with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes do not manufacture enough insulin, resulting in dangerously high blood sugar levels.
Having too much glucose in the blood for long periods damages the body. The pancreas overworks itself, causing permanent damage, and blood vessels can harden. Damaged blood vessels can result in kidney disease, strokes, and heart attacks, poor circulation, and other complications.
Diabetes can sometimes be treated simply with a healthy diet and exercise. In other cases, it is treated with laboratory-produced insulin or other medications. Insulin helps people with diabetes live much healthier lives. According to the American Diabetes Association, about 7.5 million Americans use insulin.
Low Insulin
When taken in the wrong amounts, insulin can cause serious harm. An insulin overdose overcorrects high blood sugar and causes blood sugar to fall below a healthy level.
Symptoms of hypoglycemia, a condition caused by extremely low blood sugar, include anxiety, confusion, fatigue, trembling, extreme hunger, clammy skin, and irritability. Seizures, coma, and even death can follow if hypoglycemia is left untreated.
Insulin Overdose Treatment
Once detected, hypoglycemia is treated easily with an intravenous sugar solution. It is common for diabetics to visit the emergency room for hypoglycemia after taking the wrong type of insulin (e.g. rapid-acting vs long-acting), confusing dosing units, or not eating enough food.
Problems can also arise when doctors in hospitals and nursing homes fail to monitor a patient’s blood glucose level and symptoms after administering insulin. Hypoglycemia can quickly turn 180 degrees into an insulin overdose. This happens way too often – insulin overdose has been associated with more medical mistakes than any of class or type of drug. Insulin-induced hypoglycemia causes up to 100,000 emergency room calls every year.
How Medical Negligence Causes Insulin Overdose
Maintaining a healthy blood sugar level is complicated. Blood sugar changes throughout the day in response to food intake, digestion, and activity.
High blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, is defined as above 180 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dL) after eating or above 130 mg/dL after not eating or drinking for 8 hours. Low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, is defined as below 70 mg/dL.
People with diabetes keep their blood sugar within these limits by managing food, exercising, avoiding COVID-19, and using medications like insulin.
Millions of people monitor their blood sugar using special meters and self-administer insulin in their everyday lives. Hospitals and nursing homes administer insulin to their patients. Insulin overdoses that occur anywhere along the line are sometimes the result of medical negligence. Medical malpractice claims exist to compensate patients and their families for injuries and deaths that happen because of medical negligence.
Medical professionals in pharmacies, hospitals, and nursing homes are responsible for prescribing and administering the correct dosage of insulin to their patients. Additionally, hospitals and nursing homes should routinely monitor and record diabetics’ blood sugar levels and watch for symptoms of hypoglycemia, especially after administering insulin.
Proper monitoring will catch mistakes made in insulin dosing and identify symptoms of insulin overdose, allowing medical professionals to correct the problem before it escalates.
Failure by a medical professional to closely monitor diabetic patients’ blood sugar frequently leads to medical malpractice claims. Mistakes in dosing, dispensing, and packaging insulin can also constitute negligence.
Typical Insulin Overdose Malpractice Lawsuits
Insulin overdose medical malpractice lawsuits often arise from several common scenarios where doctors and nurses do not adhere to the standard of care in managing a patient’s insulin therapy. Some of the most common examples of insulin-related medical malpractice lawsuits include:
- Incorrect Dosage Administration: Administering an incorrect dose of insulin, either too high or too low, can lead to severe hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia. This can occur due to a miscalculation, misreading of a prescription, or confusion between different types of insulin.
- Medication Errors: Mistakes in prescribing or dispensing insulin, such as prescribing the wrong type of insulin or failing to account for the patient’s current medications and health conditions, can result in overdose or adverse interactions.
- Lack of Patient Monitoring: Failing to adequately monitor a patient’s blood glucose levels after administering insulin can lead to undetected hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia. Proper monitoring is crucial, especially in hospitalized patients or those with fluctuating blood sugar levels.
- Failure to Educate Patients: Not providing patients with proper education and instructions on how to self-administer insulin, recognize signs of overdose, and respond to hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia can result in incorrect usage and potential overdose.
- Improper Use of Insulin Pumps: Errors related to the use of insulin pumps, such as setting incorrect basal rates or bolus doses, can cause continuous insulin delivery issues leading to overdose.
- Communication Failures: Inadequate communication between healthcare providers, such as not updating insulin dosage changes or not conveying critical patient information during shift changes, can lead to insulin administration errors.
- Electronic Health Record (EHR) Mistakes or Handwriting: Errors in electronic health records, such as incorrect entries or system glitches, can result in improper insulin dosing instructions being followed. Even today, there are still handwriting errors that can cause overdoses.
These examples illustrate the various ways in which medical malpractice related to insulin overdose can occur, highlighting the importance of meticulous care and communication in managing diabetes treatment.
Example Insulin Overdose Malpractice Settlement Amounts and Jury Payouts
Below are summaries of verdicts and reported settlements from medical malpractice cases involving insulin overdoses.
Quite often, the defendants in insulin overdose lawsuits are the nurses who incorrectly program the insulin machine. Our insulin overdose lawyers had a case like this at Miller & Zois, where the patient was in the hospital recovering well, and the nurse made a simple mistake that caused the man to slip into a diabetic coma from which he never recovered.
Settlement compensation payouts in insulin overdose cases can sometimes go deep into the millions because of the ongoing care required to care for a patient in a coma.
- 2021 California: $1,000,000 Settlement – A 90-something woman was admitted to a nursing home. She suffered from several comorbidities, including Type 2 diabetes, COPD, chronic kidney disease, bilateral below-the-knee amputations, and abnormal liver function. She also had an altered mental status diagnosis. The woman was not eating at the facility. Nonetheless, she received full insulin doses. The woman’s neurological functions deteriorated. Five days after being admitted, she was brought to a hospital for hypoglycemia. The woman died less than a week later. Her family alleged negligence against the nursing home. They claimed its staff failed to check the woman’s glucose levels, failed to appreciate her comorbidities, negligently administered insulin, and failed to appreciate her mental state changes. This case settled for $1,000,000.
- 2021 Texas: $6,600,000 Verdict – A 40-year-old woman with diabetes was admitted for gallbladder surgery at Houston Healthcare Perry Hospital. After the procedure, the surgeon mistakenly ordered a large dose of fast-acting insulin, Novolog, which was administered to the plaintiff without being caught by the attending physician or hospital pharmacist. She was found comatose the next morning, spent two weeks in a coma, and required extensive rehabilitation. The plaintiff suffered permanent brain damage, leading to significant cognitive and emotional impairments. The hospital and nurses settled before trial, leaving the surgeon standing alone. The jury gave him a 55% share of the liability.
- 2017 Kentucky: $134,161 Verdict – An 87-year-old man with Type 2 diabetes was admitted to a nursing home. The facility’s nurse practitioner ordered insulin doses five times the normal dose. Two days later, the man experienced a hypoglycemia episode. He also suffered an aspiration complication after the nurse attempted to orally administer Glucotrol while in an unconscious state. The man died six days later. His family alleged negligence against the nursing home. They claimed its staff administered excessive insulin doses and improperly administered insulin. The family received a $134,161 verdict.
- 2015 Louisiana: $84,634 Verdict – A 61-year-old man suffered abdominal pains. He was admitted to the ICU. The man received an insulin drip instead of antacids. He experienced a hypoglycemic seizure. The man sustained permanent brain damage. He developed severe memory loss. The man alleged negligence against the hospital. He claimed its staff wrongly administered insulin to a non-diabetic person and failed to administer antacids. The jury awarded $84,634.
- 2015 Massachusetts: $2,000,000 Settlement – The plaintiff, a 46-year-old woman with Type 1 diabetes, is admitted to the ER in the evening with a blood pressure of 498 mg/dL. The doctor administers 10 units of insulin. An hour later, a hospitalist orders more insulin to be given to the patient. Three and a half hours in, the patient’s blood sugar is reduced to 335 from the doctor’s initial dose of insulin. The defendant nurse administers the hospitalist’s additional insulin orders. At this point, the patient has received excess insulin. But she still appears stable with normal vitals. No one monitors her blood sugar levels as the night goes on. In t
he early morning, she becomes unresponsive and has no pulse. She suffers hypoglycemic encephalopathy, a brain injury caused by severe hypoglycemia. Her blood sugar had dropped to 7 mg/dL. The plaintiff hired an insulin overdose malpractice lawyer who files a lawsuit. The suit contends the defendants gave the decedent too much medication and failed to monitor her condition, resulting in her death a week later. - 2014, Iowa: $109,375 Verdict – An adult male is given insulin during a hospital stay. He becomes hypoglycemic and suffers a seizure which tears muscles and tendons in his right shoulder. The plaintiff claims that the defendant hospital improperly administered insulin and did not check his glucose level in time to prevent the injury. He also claims that a hospitalist or endocrinologist should have been consulted promptly. The defendant’s employees are found to be negligent. The plaintiff is awarded $46,875 for compensatory pain and suffering, and $62,500 for hedonic damages, or loss of enjoyment or value of life.
- 2013, North Carolina: $4,000,000 Verdict – At an acute care inpatient facility, the doctor orders insulin glargine once a day at bedtime and Insulin Lispro four times a day for a male patient with a history of diabetes. The patient dies with a blood sugar of 27 the next morning. An insulin overdose medical malpractice lawsuit is filed against the nurse responsible for the patient, claiming that the nurse “failed to act in such a way to treat this matter as a life-threatening situation.” According to the lawsuit, the nurse did not take emergency action, including failing to immediately contact the doctor, take notes, or call his emergency contact. Likewise, a lawsuit is filed against the doctor for not requiring the nurse to promptly alert him of emergencies. The jury found that the defendant’s negligence was the proximate cause of the patient’s death and that the nurse breached her fiduciary duty to the patient.
- 2008, California: $318,944 Arbitration – A 73-year-old male is in the hospital. He has diabetes. He is being treated with insulin. Instead of 8 units of insulin, a nurse gives him 80 units of insulin. That amount of insulin is a fatal dose, and the patient dies from respiratory distress following brain damage. The defense argues that since the nurse was under the impression that the patient was to receive 80 units, there was no negligence on her part. The plaintiff maintains that the decedent’s death resulted from negligence and deviation from standards of care. The plaintiff is awarded a sum of $318,944 in damages.
Contact Miller & Zois About Insulin Overdose Malpractice
If you or a family member have been injured by an insulin overdose due to negligent medical care, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Call our medical malpractice attorneys today at 800-553-5053.