Assessment of three systems to empower the patient and decrease the risk of adverse drug events

One way to reduce adverse drug events (ADEs) is to empower the patient to participate in the control of medication. This empowerment can be supported in different ways by making knowledge and information available to the patient. This study examines the usefulness and safety of two different systems on the background of a paper-based medication list presenting prescribed medicine presently used in hospitals in Copenhagen. Each of the systems examined aims to reduce ADEs but presents information in different levels of detail, and anticipates different level of prior knowledge from the patient: a Web-based prototype presenting medication, lab-results and alerts, and a cell phone-based prototype presenting alerts. Six patients were introduced to each of the systems by performing small tasks and subsequently interviewed. The patients found the paper-based medication list useful and comprehensive for control of own prescribed medication. The Web-based prototype also proved to be useful, but drug and lab values were hard to correlate, and the alerts were hard to understand. The cell phone-based prototype proved less useful as the patients were challenged to vision the applicability of the system. Furthermore, it is a safety issue that the information the alert is based upon, stems from the patient alone. We conclude that, in order for the Web-based system as well as the cell phone system to empower patient and increase patient safety, further development of the systems is necessary.