Researchers said the computer program used in the psychiatric department and hospital-wide at Johns Hopkins immediately eliminated the risk of illegible writing, which can be misread or misinterpreted by other care providers and lead to a wrong medication or wrong drug dose. The system also includes integrated decision support for drug dosage selection, drug allergy alerts, drug interactions, patient identifiers and monitoring.
At the same time that the drug ordering system was put in place, Hopkins instituted the Patient Safety Net error reporting system, which clinicians use to report all medical errors. The reporting system allows for follow up, corrective action and the ability to learn from common mistakes. After implementing the e-prescribing and reporting systems, Johns Hopkins Hospital’s 88-bed psychiatric unit went from a medication error rate of 27.89 per 1,000 patient days in 2003 to 3.43 per 1,000 patient days in 2007.
Read the news release about the impact of an e-prescribing system on medication safety.
Read other coverage about medication safety:
– Study: Providers Should Update Reviews of Comparative Drug Effectiveness on Yearly Basis
– Hospital’s New Medication Cards Aim to Improve Medication Safety
– Using Color to Differentiate Drug Strength Can Improve Medication Safety
