DENNIS QUAID has launched a U.S. programme aimed at preventing medication errors - two years after the actor's newborn twins were given a drug overdose that almost killed them.
The actor's 12-day-old babies, little Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, were left fighting for their lives after being given near-lethal doses of a blood thinner when a tired nurse working at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Hospital picked up the wrong bottles of Heparin in 2007.
California state regulators ruled hospital staff had been negligent in the incident and fined them, awarding Quaid and his wife Kimberly $750,000 (£468,750) in damages in December 2008.
The couple subsequently launched a campaign for better bottle-labelling systems to prevent hospital tragedies across America and Quaid unveiled the latest development at a pharmaceutical conference in Las Vegas on Monday (07Dec09).
The National Alert Network for Serious Medication Errors system will send e-mail alerts to an estimated 35,000 pharmacists, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals when a serious or potentially serious error happens in giving medication.
