Electronic Prescriptions Reduce Risk of Medical Errors

A new study supports the use of electronic prescriptions to reduce medical errors and enhance patient safety. According to the study, which was published in the February issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, hospitals that use electronic prescription systems have been able prevent as many as 17 million medication-related errors in a single year.

Further, the study reports that expanded use of electronic prescription systems could help prevent more than 50 million drug errors every year.

The use of electronic prescription systems helps eliminate the need for handwritten instructions. These systems include built-in checks and balances to monitor drug doses. With these systems, there is a much reduced risk of human errors, which are far too common in the case of manual prescriptions.

When hospitals use an electronic prescription system, patients also may face a much lower risk of injuries from drug interactions, because the system is able to determine the possibilities of such interactions and errors.

The researchers found that these computerized systems reduced the likelihood of medication-related errors by almost 50 percent.

However, the use of electronic prescription systems remains limited. The research found that just about 40 percent of hospitals used an electronic prescription system to process most of their drug orders.

The Seattle medical malpractice lawyers at Morrow Kidman Tinker Macey-Cushman, PLLC represent victims of medical negligence by doctors, nurses, technicians and other medical personnel across Seattle.