Drug/drug interactions are considered preventable errors. With the advent of electronic prescribing, the hope was that software would warn prescribers about interactions between one or more drugs that the patient is taking, and these alerts are common. They are so ubiquitous, in fact, that alerts are often overridden in the prescribing process. Clinicians cannot rely on prescribing software to ...

Objective: To provide a formative socio-technical evaluation of a pilot implementation of an integrated electronic prescribing, automated dispensing, barcode patient identification and electronic medication administration record (EMAR) system on one ward. Design: A qualitative observational approach using discourse analysis within a socio-technical evaluation framework addressing systems functi...

Height and weight errors confound electronic prescribing.

OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of interruptions and task complexity on error rates when prescribing with computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems, and to categorize the types of prescribing errors. DESIGN Two within-subject factors: task complexity (complex vs simple) and interruption (interruption vs no interruption). Thirty-two hospital doctors used a CPOE system in a computer labo...

BACKGROUND Inpatient medication errors are a significant concern. An approach not yet widely studied is to facilitate greater involvement of inpatients with their medication. At the same time, electronic prescribing is becoming increasingly prevalent in the hospital setting. In this study we aimed to explore hospital inpatients' involvement with medication safety-related behaviours, facilitator...

This edition includes two papers reporting research from a 5-year study of electronic prescribing in English hospitals.2 3 The papers each address a significant safety and quality issue drawing data from the wider study. These issues are the level of coordination and integration that electronic prescribing systems achieve,3 and the emergence of ‘workarounds’ as managers and clinical users adapt...

BACKGROUND Electronic prescribing systems with decision support may improve patient safety in ambulatory care by offering drug allergy and drug interaction alerts. However, preliminary studies show that clinicians override most of these alerts. METHODS We performed a retrospective analysis of 233 537 medication safety alerts generated by 2872 clinicians in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Penns...

BACKGROUND Considerable investments are being made in commercial electronic prescribing systems (e-prescribing) in many countries. Few studies have measured or evaluated their effectiveness at reducing prescribing error rates, and interactions between system design and errors are not well understood, despite increasing concerns regarding new errors associated with system use. This study evaluat...

To facilitate the future implementation of an electronic prescribing system, this case study modeled prescription management processes in various primary care settings. The Vanderbilt e-prescribing design team conducted initial interviews with clinic managers, physicians and nurses, and then represented the sequences of steps carried out to complete prescriptions in activity diagrams. The diagr...

Background: There has been little research on electronic prescribing (EP) in Middle Eastern countries. This is in part due to the slow implementation of electronic health records [EHR] integrated with EP. Electronic prescribing is associated with a considerable reduction in medication errors compared to handwritten prescriptions. Objective: This paper reviews the relevant literature on handwrit...