[Patient safety in primary care: PREFASEG project].

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Pharmacy
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Medication errors pose a significant risk in primary health care.
• Existing electronic health records may lack robust drug safety features.
• The Institut Català de la Salut (ICS) sought to enhance drug prescription safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the usefulness and refine the design of the PREFASEG software tool.
• To assess the software's ability to detect medication errors in primary care.
• To determine the acceptance rate of software-generated alerts by healthcare professionals.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study was conducted six months after integrating PREFASEG into the CPT electronic medical record system.
• PREFASEG was integrated into the eCAP system for use by 3,750 primary care physicians.
• The software generated alerts for drug interactions, redundant treatments, allergies, contraindications, and age-related drug advice.

Main Results:

• PREFASEG generated over 1.1 million alerts, with therapeutic duplication being the most frequent (62%).
• The overall acceptance rate for alerts was 35%, with pharmacological redundancies (43%) and allergies (26%) being most accepted.
• 10,808 healthcare professionals accepted at least one recommendation from the software.

Conclusions:

• PREFASEG is a feasible and efficient strategy for reducing medication errors in primary health care.
• The software effectively supports safe drug prescription and contributes to quality improvement initiatives.
• Integration of such tools can enhance patient safety by proactively identifying potential adverse drug events.