How to Prevent or Reduce Prescribing Errors: An Evidence Brief for Policy

Abstract

- Preventing prescribing errors is critical to improving patient safety. - We developed an evidence brief for policy to identify effective interventions to avoid or reduce prescribing errors. - Four options were raised: promoting educational actions on prudent prescribing directed to prescribers; incorporating computerized alert systems into clinical practice; implementing the use of tools for guiding medication prescribing; and, encouraging patient care by a multidisciplinary team, with the participation of a pharmacist. - These options can be incorporated into health systems either alone or together, and for that, it is necessary that the context be considered. - Aiming to inform decision makers, we included considerations on the implementation of these options regarding upper-middle income countries, like the Brazilian, and we also present considerations regarding equity.

A qualitative study of prescribing errors among multi-professional prescribers within an e-prescribing system

“…A policy brief summary analysing 40 systematic reviews, suggested actions dealing with prescribing error, including education for prescribers, incorporating computerised alerts, incorporating tools to guide prescribing, and encouraging multidisciplinary teams, including pharmacists, to care for patients [ 57 ]. This underlines that CPOE is only one intervention to reduce prescribing errors.…”

Pharmacist-led educational interventions provided to healthcare providers to reduce medication errors: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Multiple interventions were tested for efficacy in reducing medication errors and studies have documented that pharmacists play a major role in reducing these medication errors [14][15][16][17]. Ward-based clinical pharmacists reduce medication errors by providing real-time advice to physicians rather than recommending changes after prescribing has occurred [18][19][20].…”

Medication error awareness among health care providers in Palestine: A questionnaire-based cross-sectional observational study

“…Education and patient engagement in medication safety are key strategies in reducing medication errors ( Kim et al, 2018 ). Communication between practitioners is substantial, and it encourages all healthcare providers to be vigilant, detect and act on potential errors rather than rejecting them ( Araujo et al, 2019 ). Miscommunication of drug orders (illegible, ambiguous, incomplete, misunderstood order, and intimidation) is a common contributory factor to medication errors by healthcare providers.…”