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Information technology and medication safety: what is the benefit?
1Division of General Internal Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Partners HealthCare System, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. rkaushal@partners.org
Quality & Safety in Health Care
|December 19, 2002
Summary
Information technology significantly reduces medication errors in hospitals. Further development of these technologies is needed for both inpatient and outpatient settings to improve patient safety and reduce healthcare costs.
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Patient Safety
- Clinical Pharmacy
Background:
- Medication errors are frequent, leading to severe clinical and financial repercussions.
- Various information technologies (IT) offer potential solutions to mitigate these errors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the impact of information technologies on reducing medication errors.
- To identify effective IT interventions for both inpatient and outpatient settings.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on health information technology and medication error reduction.
- Analysis of the effectiveness of different IT tools in clinical practice.
Main Results:
- Computerized physician order entry with decision support substantially lowers serious inpatient medication errors in adults.
- Other promising inpatient technologies include automated systems, bar coding, and smart IV devices.
- Outpatient strategies involve prescribing computerization and patient-centered web-based information delivery.
Conclusions:
- Information technology is crucial for decreasing medication errors across healthcare settings.
- Continued development, implementation, and evaluation of IT are essential for widespread adoption and improved patient outcomes.