title: How do community pharmacies recover from e-prescription errors?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The use of e-prescribing is increasing annually, with over 788 million e-prescriptions received in US pharmacies in 2012. Approximately 9% of e-prescriptions have medication errors.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe the process used by community pharmacy staff to detect, explain, and correct e-prescription errors.
  
  
  METHODS
  The error recovery conceptual framework was employed for data collection and analysis. 13 pharmacists and 14 technicians from five community pharmacies in Wisconsin participated in the study. A combination of data collection methods were utilized, including direct observations, interviews, and focus groups. The transcription and content analysis of recordings were guided by the three-step error recovery model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most of the e-prescription errors were detected during the entering of information into the pharmacy system. These errors were detected by both pharmacists and technicians using a variety of strategies which included: (1) performing double checks of e-prescription information; (2) printing the e-prescription to paper and confirming the information on the computer screen with information from the paper printout; and (3) using colored pens to highlight important information. Strategies used for explaining errors included: (1) careful review of patient's medication history; (2) pharmacist consultation with patients; (3) consultation with another pharmacy team member; and (4) use of online resources. In order to correct e-prescription errors, participants made educated guesses of the prescriber's intent or contacted the prescriber via telephone or fax. When e-prescription errors were encountered in the community pharmacies, the primary goal of participants was to get the order right for patients by verifying the prescriber's intent.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pharmacists and technicians play an important role in preventing e-prescription errors through the detection of errors and the verification of prescribers' intent. Future studies are needed to examine factors that facilitate or hinder recovery from e-prescription errors.
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy and Therapeutics, University of Pittsburgh, 3501 Terrace St, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. Electronic address: oodukoya@pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Olufunmilola K
authors.initials: OK
authors.lastname: Odukoya
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Social and Administrative Sciences Division, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Jamie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Social and Administrative Sciences Division, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Michelle A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Chui
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D055695:Electronic Prescribing; D006801:Humans; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010594:Pharmacies; D010595:Pharmacists; D010596:Pharmacy Technicians; D014922:Wisconsin; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Community pharmacy; E-prescribing; Electronic prescribing; Error recovery; Medication errors