Prescriptions errors: a comparison of handwritten and computerized prescriptions at Royal Medical Services, Jordan (original) (raw)
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PLoS ONE, 2014
The knowledge of medication errors is an essential prerequisite for better healthcare delivery. The present study investigated prescribing errors in prescriptions from outpatient departments (OPDs) and emergency wards of two public sector hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. A manual prescription system was followed in Hospital A. Hospital B was running a semi-computerised prescription system in the OPD and a fully computerised prescription system in the emergency ward. A total of 510 prescriptions from both departments of these two hospitals were evaluated for patient characteristics, demographics and medication errors. The data was analysed using a chi square test for comparison of errors between both the hospitals. The medical departments in OPDs of both hospitals were the highest prescribers at 45%-60%. The age group receiving the most treatment in emergency wards of both the hospitals was 21-30 years (21%-24%). A trend of omitting patient addresses and diagnoses was observed in almost all prescriptions from both of the hospitals. Nevertheless, patient information such as name, age, gender and legibility of the prescriber's signature were found in almost 100% of the electronic-prescriptions. In addition, no prescribing error was found pertaining to drug concentrations, quantity and rate of administration in e-prescriptions. The total prescribing errors in the OPD and emergency ward of Hospital A were found to be 44% and 60%, respectively. In hospital B, the OPD had 39% medication errors and the emergency department had 73.5% errors; this unexpected difference between the emergency ward and OPD of hospital B was mainly due to the inclusion of 69.4% omissions of route of administration in the prescriptions. The incidence of prescription overdose was approximately 7%-19% in the manual system and approximately 8% in semi and fully electronic system. The omission of information and incomplete information are contributors of prescribing errors in both manual and electronic prescriptions.
Errors and omissions in hospital prescriptions: a survey of prescription writing in a hospital
BMC Clinical Pharmacology, 2009
The frequency of drug prescription errors is high. Excluding errors in decision making, the remaining are mainly due to order ambiguity, non standard nomenclature and writing illegibility. The aim of this study is to analyse, as a part of a continuous quality improvement program, the quality of prescriptions writing for antibiotics, in an Italian University Hospital as a risk factor for prescription errors.
2013
A B S T R A C T Introduction: Prescription is an order for medication issued by a properly licensed medical practitioner to the pharmacist. The prescription should be clearly written, free from writing errors, and fulfil the legal requirements. The prescription writing errors leads to the medication errors, which in turn leads to failure of therapeutic goals. Objective: A nine month prospective study was carried out to determine the prescription writing errors at a Teaching Hospital. Results: A total of 290 prescriptions were randomly collected from out patients visiting the study site, and analyzed. Among them 635 errors of omission related to prescribers and 184 errors of omission related to the drugs with an average of 2.18 and 0.63 errors per prescription respectively. The errors of omission related to prescribers were due to failure to mention signature of prescriber 27(9.31%) followed by diagnosis 27(9.31%), prescribers name 261(90%), patients weight 290(100%) and 30(10.34%) w...
Study on determination of errors in prescription writing: A semi-electronic perspective
Kathmandu University Medical Journal, 2010
Background: Prescription writing is one of the most important and basic skills that a doctor needs. Prescribing errors may have various detrimental consequences. Hence, the components of a prescription should be clearly written, free of drug related omission (incomplete prescription), commission (incorrect information) and integration errors, without nonoffi cial abbreviations, and fulfi l the legal requirements of a prescription. Since errors of prescribing are the commonest form of avoidable medication errors, it is the most important target for improvement. Objectives: To estimate the types and prevalence of medication errors during transcription. Materials and methods: A cross sectional descriptive retrospective study was conducted at Nobel Medical Teaching Hospital, Biratnagar, Nepal during a time period from 15 th November 2008 to 14 th February 2009. A random sample of 268 prescriptions of patients written during a period of one year (18/06/2007 to 17/06/2008) for ten different medical out patient departments of the Hospital were reviewed and the analysis was carried out for determining the different types of errors in writing a prescription. Results: No error was found regarding the name, age, sex and address of the patients. The error in prescriptions regarding the prescriber's name, qualifi cation, NMC registration number and signature were 85.4%, 99.6%, 99.6% and 15.7% respectively. Similarly, the symbol Rx was missing in 66.8%. Dosage form, quantity, dose, frequency and route of administration were not mentioned in 12%, 60%, 19%, 10% and 63% of the prescriptions respectively. Likewise, strength of the prescribed medicines was not stated in 40% of the cases. Conclusion: There is a need to critically address the legibility of prescription, correct spelling of drugs, authorised abbreviations and all other informations of a prescription concerned with patient, prescriber and drugs to minimise the occurrence of medication errors.
Risk factors for medication errors in the electronic and manual prescription
Revista latino-americana de enfermagem, 2016
to compare electronic and manual prescriptions of a public hospital of Brasilia, identifying risk factors for the occurrence of medication errors. descriptive-exploratory, comparative and retrospective study. Data collection occurred from July 2012 to January 2013, using an instrument for the review of the information contained in medical records related to the medication process. A total of 190 manual and 199 electronic records composed the sample, with 2027 prescriptions each. compared to the manual prescription, a significant reduction was observed in the risk factors after implantation of the electronic prescription, in items such as "lack of the form of dilution" (71.1% to 22.3%) and "prescription with brand name" (99.5% to 31.5%). Conversely, the risk factors "no check" and "lack of CRM of the prescriber" increased. The lack of the allergy registration and the occurrences related to medication were the same for both groups. generally, th...
Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science
Background: Prescription errors often lead to mishaps around healthcare facility that often end up with adverse drug reactions and even some cases death Being in a healthcare facility the patient should have full confidence in the health care providers and not have to worry about minor mistakes leading to a possible lethal one. Aim and objective: The aims and objectives of our study is to evaluate the prescription writing errors in different community pharmacies and tertiary care hospitals also to assess the knowledge of patients regarding their disease and treatment. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.18(2) 2019 p.260-266
IOSR Journals , 2019
Medication error is the second cause of patient safety incidents that could lead to morbidity and mortality. The incompleteness and illegibility of medication prescription are high in developing countries. Most developed countries adopted electronic prescribing that has led to a reduction of incompleteness and illegibility of medication prescription errors. This study aimed to compare the illegibility and incompleteness rate in handwritten and computerized prescriptions in two ophthalmology clinics in Benghazi. A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed in outpatient ophthalmology clinics. Data were collected from Al-Kish public ophthalmology polyclinic, and advanced ophthalmology private center. The handwritten and computerized prescriptions were assessed for incompleteness by the checklist based on the Al-Kish polyclinic prescription format and WHO's guide to good prescribing. The handwritten prescriptions were evaluated for illegibility by two pharmacists. The patient and prescriber identification incompleteness rate in the handwritten prescriptions was 61.4% while it was 10.6% in the computerized prescriptions. In the handwritten prescriptions, the rate of medication identification incompleteness was 42.6% compared to 5.6% in the computerized prescriptions. There was no agreement between the experienced and less experienced pharmacists regarding prescription legibility. In conclusion, incompleteness was higher in handwritten prescriptions than computerized prescriptions. This study emphasizes electronic prescription use.
2014
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE ABSTRACT ARTICLE INFORMATION Background: Correct prescription writing habits could have a great influence on the fate of drug therapy as well as the health of patients. The aim of the study was to determine the prescription writing errors from the outpatient department of pediatrics in a teaching Hospital. Subject and methods: A nine month hospital based prospective study was carried out after obtaining ethical clearance certificate. A total of 220 prescriptions were randomly collected and analyzed. Results: Among them 279 errors of omission related to prescriber and 236 errors of omission related to drugs with an average of 1.26 and1.07 error per prescription were reported respectively. Among errors of omission related to the prescriber, prescribers name was not written in 215 (97.72%) followed by weight18 (8.18%) and illegible prescriptions were 18(8.18%). Regarding errors omission related to the drugs, duration/no. of doses was not mentioned in124 (53.36...
Handwritten prescription errors are worldwide common problem. We investigated the types and extent of prescription errors in three cities of Bangladesh. Total 900 outpatient prescriptions were surveyed following the guidelines of WHO and BNF. Prescription errors in superscription, inscription and subscription were analyzed by Microsoft Excel 2010. About 73% patients visited MBBS and 8% BDS doctors. The male outpatients (55%) were slightly higher than female (45%). Commonly found errors of prescription were in superscription part, i.e. gender (64.33%), age (17.67%) and name (5%) of the patients. In inscription part, most common error was the direction for drug use (42%) followed by the dosage regimens (28%), doses (26%), and dosage forms (12.67%) of the drug. In subscription part, illegible handwriting was most common (46%) followed by the prescribers sign (10.67%) and date (4%). In a single prescription, averagely 3 and maximally 8 drugs were found to be prescribed. Most frequently prescribed drugs were antibiotics (18.25%) followed by antacids (17.45%) and NSAIDs (13.60%). Errors in handwritten prescriptions are the primary causes of treatment failure in Bangladesh. More professional care by the prescribers' and the inclusion of pharmacists in hospital can only reduce the errors and assure safer health.