Attitude of Physicians Towards Automatic Alerting in Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems

Medication errors and adverse drug events (ADEs) are serious hazards for patients all over the world. Reports of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimate that a patient in an US-hospital faces at least one medication error per day [1, 2]. Most medication errors, and a majority of ADEs, occur during the prescription phase of the medication cycle [3 –5]. Amongst other approaches, the Institute of Medicine recommends the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in order to improve medication safety [1]. Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems have shown the potential to reduce medication errors as well as ADEs [6]. CPOE systems may be coupled with Computerized Decision Sup