The use of CPOE minimises the occurrence of medication errors, however, they still occur. Most errors are associated with the CPOE technology. We therefore face a new challenge in the prevention of ME that require a change in strategy for patient safety. Continued training of prescribers, standardization of the electronic prescription programs and integration between computer applications in hospitals and with primary care should be a priority.

Objectives to determine the safety and effect of intravenous iron sucrose on functional outcomes, delirium, nosocomial infections and transfusion requirements in older patients with hip fracture. Design single-centre randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Setting and participants orthogeriatric share care service at an academic tertiary care hospital. A total of 253 patients were recruited: 126 patients were assigned to intravenous iron and 127 to placebo. Methods on days 1, 3 and 5 after admission, the iron group received 200 mg Venofer® (iron sucrose) in 100 ml saline and the placebo group 100 ml saline. The primary outcome was absolute functional gain, considered as Barthel index (BI) at discharge minus BI on admission. Secondary outcomes included incidence of postoperative delirium according to the confusion assessment method, proportion of patients recovering prior functional status at 3 months, postoperative transfusion requirements, haemoglobin at 3 months, incidence of nosocomial infections and safety. Results the median participant age was 87 (interquartile range, 82.5–91.5) years. Most patients were female (72.7%), and the median previous BI was 81(59–95). No significant effect of intravenous iron was observed for the primary outcome: the median AFG score was 17.1 points (4.8–23.3) in the intravenous iron group and 16 points (6–26) in the placebo group (P = 0.369). No significant treatment effects were observed for other functional outcomes or secondary end points. Conclusion while we found no impact of intravenous iron sucrose on functional recovery, incidence of postoperative delirium, transfusion requirements, haemoglobin at 3 months, mortality and nosocomial infections rates in older patients with hip fracture, we did find that the intervention was safe.

Objectives To analyse the impact of the computerised prescription order entry (CPOE) alerts on the reduction of errors due to medication interactions in the prescribing process of vitamin K antagonists. Methods Prospective study over 3 months in a 1400-bed university tertiary care centre gifted with CPOE software, which includes medication interaction alerts. Adult patients receiving oral anticoagulant treatment with vitamin K antagonists with international normalised ratio ≥4 were included. The reason for their hyperanticoagulation was evaluated. We analysed the impact of incorporating interactive alerts in the prescription of vitamin K antagonists in terms of reduction of medication errors by comparing results with a previous period with no interaction alerts incorporated in the software. The main outcome measure was medication errors. Results Implementation of alerts reduced the number of medication errors caused by drug interactions by 71.4% (p=0.02). The number of errors diminished from 10.5 per month to 3 when interaction alerts were introduced. Conclusions Implementation of a CPOE interaction alert programme reduces interaction errors. Additionally, the use of this new technology allowed us to perform a thorough analysis of data and to identify and implement actions aimed at improving patient safety.

New technologies like computerized physician order entry systems, that includes a support alert for drug allergies, can be an effective tool to prevent medical errors related to drug hypersensitivity most of them caused by lack of documentation and information.

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Background The process of reconciling medicines not available in the hospital has been demonstrated to be a powerful strategy to prevent adverse drug events. Purpose To evaluate drug prescription and administration errors after medicines reconciliation (MR) involving medicines not available in the hospital (MNAH) prescribed prior to admission. Materials and methods We conducted a cross-sectional, observational study in an academic medical centre using computerised physician-order entry (CPOE). After MR at admission, when clinicians decided that these medicines needed to be continued during hospitalisation, since they were not included in the CPOE database, they were prescribed as a generic product, ‘MNAH’ with the drug name and dosage. The main outcome measured was medicines errors involving MNAH detected in the prescription and administration phases. Results We analysed 338 MNAH prescribed to 207 inpatients, mainly for chronic cardiovascular diseases. We detected 211 prescription errors (62.4%, 95% CI: 57–67.6) most of them related to route of administration and dose and 47 drug administration errors (13.9%, 95% CI: 10.4–18). Omission was the principal type of error in both cases. The main causes of these errors were CPOE program deficiencies (62.1%, 95% CI: 55.1–68.6) and lack of information about medicines history in medical records (31.3%, 95% CI: 25.1–38). Most errors did not reach the patient or reached the patient without causing any harm. Errors that caused harm to patients were due to drug duplication. Clinicians considered that 65.9% (95% CI: 59–72.2) of errors could have been avoided with an improved CPOE system. Conclusions Errors associated with prescription and administration of MNAH after MR are common among adult inpatients. Our results suggest that there are two main weak points: i) lack of coordination and available information for clinicians about patients’ medicines history, ii) CPOE deficiencies related to MNAH prescription. No conflict of interest.

Introduction. The lack of pediatric clinical trials (PCTs) leads to an off-label drug use (OLDU) in children. Our objective was to analyze the number and design of PCTs and OLDU in children in the past years. Population, material and methods. Observational and retrospective study on PCTs and OLDU in children, conducted from 2007 to 2012 in a 252-bed children's hospital. The number and design of PCTs and OLDU in children were analyzed by year and by characteristics. Results. Eighty-seven PCTs and 449 active ingredients corresponding to 1049 drugs prescribed to hospitalized children were evaluated.Of these, 117 (26%) were used off-label. The number of PCTs increased from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, 52.2% of PCTs were non-randomized and uncontrolled studies, and only 39.1% were randomized, controlled trials. Of all studied drugs, 77% corresponded to off-label use. OLDU in children remained steady throughout the study period. Conclusions. In our hospital, the number of pediatric research studies has increased in the past years, being non-randomized and uncontrolled studies the most frequent. OLDU in children has not changed.