Computer glitch causes thousands of patients to receive wrong medical dosage

Maccabi Healthcare Services working to reach out to some 3,000 Israelis whose prescriptions were not filled properly

One of Israel’s main healthcare providers is working to contact thousands of patients after a computer glitch caused their prescriptions to be improperly filled.

Some 3,000 patients did not receive the proper dosage of medication from Maccabi Healthcare Services, according to a report in the Haaretz daily Friday, which cited sources at the health maintenance organization saying the mistakes ranged from half a milligram to a milliliter.

“From the conversations we had up until now with patients we discovered that in many cases the pharmacists noticed something wasn’t right and told the patients to go back to their doctors or contact them,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.

There were no reports of any patients experiencing medical complications from taking an improper dosage of their medicine.

Maccabi said the improper dosages were distributed between Tuesday and Thursday.

“The malfunction has been fixed and the systems returned to operating normally,” it said.