title: Electronic prescribing reduced prescribing errors in a pediatric renal outpatient clinic.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the effect of an electronic prescribing (EP) system on the incidence and type of prescribing errors and the number of error-free visits.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a before-and-after study conducted in a nephrology outpatient clinic at an acute tertiary care pediatric hospital.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 520 patients had 2242 items prescribed on 1141 prescriptions during the study period. The overall prescribing error rate was 77.4% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 75.3% to 79.4%) for handwritten items and 4.8% (95% CI = 3.4% to 6.7%) with EP. Before EP, 1153 (73.3%; 95% CI = 71.1% to 75.4%) items were missing essential information, and 194 (12.3%; 95% CI = 10.8% to 14%) were judged illegible. After EP, only 9 (1.4%; 95% CI = 0.7% to 2.6%) items were missing essential information, and illegibility errors were eliminated. The number of patient visits that were error-free increased from 21% to 90% (69% difference; 95% CI = 64% to 73.4%) after the implementation of EP.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There was a high incidence of errors using handwritten prescriptions in the outpatient setting, with an overall error rate of 77.4%. EP significantly reduced errors related to completeness of prescriptions and eliminated legibility related errors.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Pediatric Pharmacy Research, The School of Pharmacy, University of London and the Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Yogini Hariprasad
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Jani
authors.forename: Maisoon Abdullah
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ghaleb
authors.forename: Stephen D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Marks
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cope
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Barber
authors.forename: Ian Chi Kei
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities; D000555:Ambulatory Care Information Systems; D002648:Child; D016303:Clinical Pharmacy Information Systems; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D050316:Medical Order Entry Systems; D008508:Medication Errors; D008509:Medication Systems; D008875:Middle Aged; D009398:Nephrology / Q000379:methods*; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000379:methods*; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital; D015203:Reproducibility of Results