Use of structured paediatric-prescribing screens to reduce the
risk of medication errors in the care of children
Evidence of the difference a structured prescribing pathway can
make in reducing prescribing errors is presented by Keith Farrar
and colleagues from Wirral Hospital.
keywords: electronic prescribing and medicines administration,
clinical decision support, medication errors, structured prescribing
pathways, prescribing in paediatrics.
abstract
Prescribing for children is often more complex than prescribing
for adults, as most doses need to be calculated from bodyweight.
Most electronic prescribing systems are designed for treating
adults, and paediatric doses are often given only cursory attention.
In this article we report our experience of use of structured
pathways for paediatric prescribing in a district general hospital.
A project team consisting of pharmacists, paediatricians and IT
analysts was formed to review the existing pathways and to design
and implement new prescription pathways for a series of drugs.
A before-and-after audit of prescribing errors in treatment of
children demonstrated that the new pathways significantly reduced
prescribing errors, from 26% to 4% in the case of paediatricians and
from 76% to less than 7% in the case of non-paediatricians.
We conclude that structured pathways are an effective way of
reducing errors in prescribing for children.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2003: 20(4): 25–7.
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