Difference between revisions of "Impact of computerized physician order entry on medication prescription errors in the intensive care unit: a controlled cross-sectional trial"

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'''Question''''',  '''Is the introduction of a computerized ICU system (Centricity Critical Care Clinisoft, GE Healthcare) reduced the incidence and severity of medication prescription errors (MPEs)?'''
 
'''Question''''',  '''Is the introduction of a computerized ICU system (Centricity Critical Care Clinisoft, GE Healthcare) reduced the incidence and severity of medication prescription errors (MPEs)?'''
  
'''Introduction'''''
+
It was reported that 44,000 to 98,000 people annually die in US hospitals as aresult of medical errors. There is an estimation that 7000 deaths occurs each year as  a result of MPEs. MPEs can occur in all stages of medication process from prescribing to dispensing of the drug.
  
• In 1999, the Institute Of Medicine reported that 44,000 to 98,000 people annually die in US hospitals as a result of medical errors.Medication errors occurring either in or out of the hospital are estimated to account for at least 7,000 deaths each year.It has been shown that the attributable cost ranges from $10 for a medication error without harm, to more than $5,000 for a serious ADE
+
It was found that 1/100 of in hospital medication errors result in ADE and 7/100 have the potential to do so. In addition to that the cost ranges from $10 for a medication error without harm to more than $5,000 for serious ADE.
  
 +
But in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) the occurrance of ADE may be twice as high as in non-ICUs so there must be a solution to prevent MPE occurance in ICUs.
  
• In intensive care unit (ICU) settings, the rate of preventable and potential ADEs is even higher, being almost twice as high as in non-ICUs.This can be attributed to the high number of drugs that ICU patients receive, the preference for intravenous administration and the incidence of organ failure, all of which increase the potential for errors.
+
Leapfrog group recommended CPOE as a major step to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors in USA. As CPOE has the potential to decrease the occurrence of illegible orders , inappropriate doses and incomplete orders.
  
• Until now, CPOE has never been shown to decrease patient morbidity or mortality
+
This study was conducted in a tertiary care university hospital for aperiod  of five weeks. ICIS (Intensive care Information System) which is a computerized system specifically designed for ICU it consists of CPOE and moderate level of CDSS with full connections to monitors,ventilators,syringe pumps and connection with the hospital information system for administrative patient data and laboratory results .
but seems to be especially helpful in preventing minor errors.
+
ICIS was implemented in 8 beds unit and compared it with 14 beds PBUs and after 10 months of implementation of ICIS in the latter unit patients were  assigned randomly to either of these units by an independent nurse. The medical staff consists of five senior intensivists and three residents rotated continuously over these units each one week.
  
 +
The person who is responsible for discovering MPE was a surgical ICU-independent clinical pharmacist with experience in medication errors analyzed every medication order of randomly selected patients.
 +
All medications and fluid prescriptions were checked for errors in drug name, dosing,dosage interval, pharmaceutical form preparation instructions ,adequate drug monitoring, route of administration , double prescriptions , drug-drug interactions,….., and known allergy to prescribed drug.
  
• An intensive care information system (ICIS) is a computerized system specifically designed for the ICU.A prospective trial was conducted in a paper-based unit (PB-U) versus a computerized unit (C-U) in a 22-bed ICU of a tertiary university hospital
+
During the five week study period they have analyzed a total of 2,510 medication and fluid prescriptions , comprising 1,286 in C-U and 1,224 in PB-U.
  
• The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the incidence and severity of medication prescribing errors (MPEs) between this CPOE unit and paper-based units.An independent panel evaluated the severity of MPEs.They identified three groups of MPE:
+
They identified three groups of severity of MPEs
 +
-minor MPEs (no potential to cause harm)
 +
-intercepted MPEs (potential to cause harm but intercepted on time)
 +
-serious MPEs (non-intercepted potential adverse drug events)
  
  - minor MPEs (no potential to cause harm)
 
  - intercepted MPEs (potential to cause harm but intercepted on time)
 
  - serious MPEs (non-intercepted potential adverse drug events (ADE) or
 
ADEs, being MPEs with potential to cause, or actually causing, patient harm).
 
  
'''Materials and methods'''''
+
InC-U 44 MPEs occurred versus 331 in PB-U (3.4%-27%) the ICIS have the impact of 86.7% relative reduction for all types of errors.
 +
Also pharmaceutical form errors and infusion rate errors were minor MPE while double prescriptions and problem of trailed zeros (for example, aspirin 3g instead of 0.3g) were intercepted MPEs and dosing errors or incompleteness of low molecular weight heparin prescriptions.
  
'''Setting'''
+
On the other hand , In PB-U illegible writing , incomplete orders and abbreviations were minor MPEs while errors of negligence (e.g. wrong route of administration) or transcription errors were intercepted MPEs and dosing errors (especially for antibiotics and anti-epiletic drugs) were ADEs.
  
The study was conducted in a tertiary care University Hospital over a five week period (21 March to 28 April, 2004). The 22-bed surgical ICU was divided into three adjacent units of 8, 6 and 8 beds.
+
91% of MPE in PBU were due to dosing errors which is significantly higher than the proportion of dosing errors in C-U (41%)
  
'''Study design'''''
+
In PBU as the number of drug orders increased there is a trend toward more prescription errors which is in contrast with C-U.
  
A prospective, controlled cross-sectional trial was conducted in two paper-based units (PB-Us; total of 14 beds (8 + 6)) versus one computerized unit (C-U; 8 beds), 10 months after implementation of the ICIS in the latter unit. Patients were randomly assigned to either of these units by an independent nurse. All units had a similar case mix of patients. Medical staff, consisting of five senior intensivists and three residents, rotated continuously over these units, usually on a one-week basis
+
'''Summary'''
  
A surgical ICU-independent clinical pharmacist with experience in medication errors analyzed every medication order of randomly selected patients during this five week period and recorded every possible MPE
+
There is 7000 death incidences occur each year due to MPE. In this study they tried to determine whether using computerized ICU is beneficial or not.  They have found that using ICIS (Intensive care Information System) which consists of CPOE and CDSS reduced MPEs by a percentage of 86.7%.In addition , using CPOE can protect against MPEs in patients with multiple drug prescriptions as they found that as the number of drug orders increase there is no trend toward prescription errors in C-U.
  
All medication and fluid prescriptions were checked for errors in:
 
 
1. Drug (brand or generic) name (illegible, abbreviations, wrong name).
 
 
2. Dosing (overdose, underdose, dose omitted).
 
 
3. Dosage interval (incorrect dosage interval, dosage interval omitted).
 
 
4. Pharmaceutical form.
 
 
5. Preparation instructions (incorrect or omitted solvent or dilution, if not available on standard nursing charts).
 
 
6. Adequate drug monitoring (no monitoring, wrong drug monitoring, if necessary according to normal hospital practice).
 
 
7. Route of administration (incorrect route, route omitted).
 
8. Infusion rate of continuous medication (wrong rate, rate omitted).
 
 
9. Double prescriptions.
 
 
10. Clinically important drug-drug interactions.
 
 
11. Contra-indications to the prescribed drug.
 
 
12. Known allergy to the prescribed drug.
 
 
Errors were identified within 24 hours after prescription
 
 
'''Results'''''
 
 
The C-U and the PB-U each contained 80 patient-days, and a total of 2,510 medication prescriptions were evaluated.
 
 
• The incidence of MPEs was significantly lower in the C-U compared with the PB-U (44/1286 (3.4%) versus 331/1224 (27.0%); P < 0.001).
 
 
• There were significantly less minor MPEs in the C-U than in the PB-U (9 versus 225; P < 0.001).
 
 
• Intercepted MPEs were also lower in the C-U (12 versus 46; P < 0.001), as well as the non-intercepted potential ADEs (21 versus 48; P < 0.001).
 
 
• There was also a reduction of ADEs (2 in the C-U versus 12 in the PB-U; P < 0.01). No fatal errors occurred.
 
 
• The most frequent drug classes involved were cardiovascular medication and antibiotics in both groups.
 
 
• Patients with renal failure experienced less dosing errors in the C-U versus the PB-U (12 versus 35 serious MPEs; P < 0.001).
 
 
 
'''Conclusion'''''
 
 
The ICU computerization, including the medication order entry, resulted in a significant decrease in the occurrence and severity of medication errors in the ICU.
 
  
 
     Reviewed by : Eman Zaghlul
 
     Reviewed by : Eman Zaghlul

Latest revision as of 04:50, 31 March 2008

Kirsten Colpaert, 1 Barbara Claus,2 Annemie Somers,3 Koenraad Vandewoude,4 Hugo Robays,5 and Johan Decruyenaere6

Question, Is the introduction of a computerized ICU system (Centricity Critical Care Clinisoft, GE Healthcare) reduced the incidence and severity of medication prescription errors (MPEs)?

It was reported that 44,000 to 98,000 people annually die in US hospitals as aresult of medical errors. There is an estimation that 7000 deaths occurs each year as a result of MPEs. MPEs can occur in all stages of medication process from prescribing to dispensing of the drug.

It was found that 1/100 of in hospital medication errors result in ADE and 7/100 have the potential to do so. In addition to that the cost ranges from $10 for a medication error without harm to more than $5,000 for serious ADE.

But in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) the occurrance of ADE may be twice as high as in non-ICUs so there must be a solution to prevent MPE occurance in ICUs.

Leapfrog group recommended CPOE as a major step to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors in USA. As CPOE has the potential to decrease the occurrence of illegible orders , inappropriate doses and incomplete orders.

This study was conducted in a tertiary care university hospital for aperiod of five weeks. ICIS (Intensive care Information System) which is a computerized system specifically designed for ICU it consists of CPOE and moderate level of CDSS with full connections to monitors,ventilators,syringe pumps and connection with the hospital information system for administrative patient data and laboratory results . ICIS was implemented in 8 beds unit and compared it with 14 beds PBUs and after 10 months of implementation of ICIS in the latter unit patients were assigned randomly to either of these units by an independent nurse. The medical staff consists of five senior intensivists and three residents rotated continuously over these units each one week.

The person who is responsible for discovering MPE was a surgical ICU-independent clinical pharmacist with experience in medication errors analyzed every medication order of randomly selected patients. All medications and fluid prescriptions were checked for errors in drug name, dosing,dosage interval, pharmaceutical form preparation instructions ,adequate drug monitoring, route of administration , double prescriptions , drug-drug interactions,….., and known allergy to prescribed drug.

During the five week study period they have analyzed a total of 2,510 medication and fluid prescriptions , comprising 1,286 in C-U and 1,224 in PB-U.

They identified three groups of severity of MPEs -minor MPEs (no potential to cause harm) -intercepted MPEs (potential to cause harm but intercepted on time) -serious MPEs (non-intercepted potential adverse drug events)


InC-U 44 MPEs occurred versus 331 in PB-U (3.4%-27%) the ICIS have the impact of 86.7% relative reduction for all types of errors. Also pharmaceutical form errors and infusion rate errors were minor MPE while double prescriptions and problem of trailed zeros (for example, aspirin 3g instead of 0.3g) were intercepted MPEs and dosing errors or incompleteness of low molecular weight heparin prescriptions.

On the other hand , In PB-U illegible writing , incomplete orders and abbreviations were minor MPEs while errors of negligence (e.g. wrong route of administration) or transcription errors were intercepted MPEs and dosing errors (especially for antibiotics and anti-epiletic drugs) were ADEs.

91% of MPE in PBU were due to dosing errors which is significantly higher than the proportion of dosing errors in C-U (41%)

In PBU as the number of drug orders increased there is a trend toward more prescription errors which is in contrast with C-U.

Summary

There is 7000 death incidences occur each year due to MPE. In this study they tried to determine whether using computerized ICU is beneficial or not. They have found that using ICIS (Intensive care Information System) which consists of CPOE and CDSS reduced MPEs by a percentage of 86.7%.In addition , using CPOE can protect against MPEs in patients with multiple drug prescriptions as they found that as the number of drug orders increase there is no trend toward prescription errors in C-U.


   Reviewed by : Eman Zaghlul