title: Evaluating the impact of a pediatric weight-based dosing procedure in outpatient pharmacy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the percentage of pediatric outpatient pharmacy prescriptions with inappropriate prescribing identified by a pharmacist that resulted in a change to the prescription. Secondary objectives include describing types of inappropriate prescribing errors, prevalence of Institute of Safe Medication Practices high-alert medications, patient demographics, prescriber origin, and prescription origin.
  
  
  METHODS
  This retrospective outpatient prescription record review was approved by an institutional review board and performed at an outpatient pharmacy located in an academic teaching hospital. The study reviewed pediatric outpatient prescriptions for a 6-month period. Prescriptions with prescribing errors were identified from pediatric prescriptions sent to the problem queue and documented with appropriate pharmacist notes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This study demonstrated the impact of a dose checking procedure and pharmacist interventions on pediatric prescriptions. Initial results show that 3% of all pediatric prescriptions required a pharmacist intervention. Of these prescriptions, 50% resulted in a change to the original prescription.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Weight-based dose checking in a pediatric outpatient pharmacy proactively prevents potential adverse events among the pediatric population. Despite this study's limitations, we believe that a pediatric dose checking procedure in community pharmacies will reduce adverse events. Further study is warranted in this field.
authors.forename: Jonathan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.forename: Morgan B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: Krista
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Decker
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McFarland
authors.forename: Carlton K K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D001835:Body Weight; D002648:Child; D054796:Drug Dosage Calculations; D006801:Humans; D057970:Inappropriate Prescribing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital; D012189:Retrospective Studies