Medication errors are a major concern for most hospitals. In 2002, the U. S. PharmacopeiaÆs voluntary med error tracking system, MEDMARX, received 192,477 reports of medication errors, and that is with less than 10 percent of the nationÆs hospitals participating (Lafleur, 2004, 29). Fortunately, only 20 of these errors were fatal, another 47 required life-sustaining interventions, and another 514 cases led to either initial or prolonged hospitalization. A more recent study of some 36 hospitals and nursing homes showed that nearly 20 percent of all medications administered involved some sort of mistake. In every case, at least one of the five cardinal ôrightsö of medication administration - right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and right time - was wrong.
Many methods are currently being sought to overcome the tremendous problem of medication errors, and computers are increasingly being used in efforts to avoid these problems (Lafleur, 2004, 29). In 2001, the Institute of Medicine called for the elimination of hand-written drug orders over the next ten years. Congress introduced two bills that together would award more than $1.3 billion in grants to hospitals to help them adopt the latest technology. This year, the Food and Drug Administration issued a ruling requiring bar code labeling of most prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs dispensed by doctorsÆ orders in hospitals.
The agency for Healthcare Research and Quality established that computerized order entry (COE) can reduce medication errors by anywhere from 28 percent to 95 percent (Lafleur, 2004, 29). Computers can hold all the patientÆs information, including a list of the medications they are taking, and alert doctors to potential interactions when they place orders. The system can be linked to the laboratory to automatically generate orders for critical laboratory work, and can flag abnormal findings. Nurses no longer have to tra...