E-prescribing for reducing errors?

Medication prescribing is essential for the treatment, curing, maintenance, and/or prevention of an illness and disease; however, medication errors remain common. Common errors including prescribing and administration, pose significant risk to patients. Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) is one intervention used to enhance the safety and quality of prescribing by decreasing medication errors and reducing harm. E-prescribing in community-based settings has not been extensively examined.

A rapid scoping review was conducted to identify stdudies reporting on e-prescribing and medication safety. MEDLINE All (OVID), Embase (Elsevier), CINAHL Full Text (EBSCOHost), and Scopus (Elsevier) databases were searched and thirty-five studies were included in this review. Half of included studies reported physicians as the prescriber (n = 18), while the remaining reported a mix of nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and physician assistants (n = 6). Studies reported on types of errors, including prescription errors (n = 20), medication safety errors (n = 9), dispensing errors (n = 2), and administration errors (n = 1). Few studies examined patient health outcomes, such as adverse drug events (n = 5).

While e-prescribing has perceived benefits, especially related to sustainability, further research, such as experimental, implementation, and evaluation mixed-methods research, is needed to investigate the effects of e-prescribing on reducing error rates and improving patient and health system outcomes.

W&W Strategy Lead, Dr. Brittany Barber, discusses the evidence related to this important and potentially sustainable approach for health systems.