Medication Safety in Primary Care Practice: results from a PPRNet quality improvement intervention.
Reducing medication errors is a fundamental patient safety goal; however, few improvement interventions have been evaluated in primary care settings. The Medication Safety in Primary Care Practice project was designed to test the impact of a multimethod quality improvement intervention on 5 categories of preventable prescribing and monitoring errors in 20 Practice Partner Research Network (PPRNet) practices. PPRNet is a primary care practice-based research network among users of a common electronic health record (EHR). The intervention was associated with significant improvements in avoidance of potentially inappropriate therapy, potential drug-disease interactions, and monitoring of potential adverse events over 2 years. Avoidance of potentially inappropriate dosages and drug-drug interactions did not change over time. Practices implemented a variety of medication safety strategies that may be relevant to other primary care audiences, including use of EHR-based audit and feedback reports, medication reconciliation, decision-support tools, and refill protocols.
Department of Family Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA. Wessell@musc.edu
Andrea M
AM
Wessell
Steven M
SM
Ornstein
Ruth G
RG
Jenkins
Lynne S
LS
Nemeth
Cara B
CB
Litvin
Paul J
PJ
Nietert
D004344:Drug Incompatibility; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010317:Partnership Practice / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D061214:Patient Safety; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D058996:Quality Improvement / Q000458:organization & administration*