A clinical information system reduces medication errors in paediatric intensive care

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Medication Safety

Background:

• Prescribing errors and omitted doses are significant concerns in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs).
• Electronic prescribing (EP) systems integrated with clinical information systems offer potential solutions to improve medication safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of implementing electronic prescribing (EP) within the Intellivue Clinical Information Portfolio on prescribing errors and omitted doses.
• To assess medication safety changes in a PICU following EP system integration.

Main Methods:

• A prospective audit was conducted over three epochs: pre-implementation, 1 week post-implementation, and 6 months post-implementation of EP.
• Data collection focused on prescribing errors and omitted doses over 96-hour periods in a PICU setting.

Main Results:

• A non-significant reduction in prescribing errors was observed, decreasing from 8.8% pre-implementation to 4.6% at 6 months post-implementation.
• The prevalence of omitted doses significantly decreased from 8.1% pre-implementation to 1.4% at 6 months post-implementation (P < 0.05).

Conclusions:

• Electronic prescribing integrated with a clinical information system enhances medication safety in a pediatric intensive care unit.
• The study demonstrates a significant reduction in omitted doses, contributing to improved patient safety outcomes.