A new report, supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, demonstrates that processing prescriptions through computerized provider order entry can cut drug errors in half, and could avoid more than 17 million adverse incidents annually.
The authors of the study, “Reduction in medication errors in hospitals due to adoption of computerized provider order entry systems,” published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, started by taking a close look at published evidence on the impact of CPOE on hospital drug errors.
The researchers then combined this information with data on CPOE adoption and the volume of annual medication orders. The results estimated the reduction in drug errors for one year – and found that more widespread use of computerized entry could have a big impact on drug errors.