Safe prescribing: an educational intervention for medical students.
OBJECTIVE
Errors in handwritten medication orders are common and can result in patient harm. We evaluated an intervention for increasing safe prescribing by medical students.


METHODS
We conducted a pre-post evaluation to evaluate a brief educational intervention to increase safe prescribing by medical students. Two 1-hr, small-group, interactive educational sessions for 3rd-year medical students were held 2 weeks apart at Washington University in St. Louis. Prescribing errors were measured with a verbal transcription test.


RESULTS
Twenty-eight students participated. Following the intervention, the average number of error-free orders in the 10-order test increased 5-fold from 0.82 per student to 4.54 per student, and the average number of errors and dangerous errors per student decreased from 13.96 to 7.36 (p < .0001) and from 4.75 to 2.68 (p < .0001), respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
After a brief interactive educational intervention for medical students, the frequency of error-free handwritten orders increased, and prescribing errors decreased. Additional training may be required to further improve and maintain safe prescribing.
Garbutt
Jane M
JM
Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine , St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. jgarbutt@im.wustl.edu
DeFer
Thomas M
TM
Highstein
Gabrielle
G
McNaughton
Candace
C
Milligan
Paul
P
Fraser
Victoria F
VF
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D004501:Education, Medical; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D013337:Students, Medical