“…The literature, based primarily on observation and anecdotal evidence, suggests various IT applications may be used to enhance patient safety. These applications, or patient safety-related information technologies (PSITs), broadly include computerized physician order entry (CPOE;Ash, Gorman, Seshadri, & Hersh, 2003;Kaushal, Barker, & Bates, 2001), computerized patient records (CPR; Bates & Gawande, 2003), bar-coded medication management (Johnson, Carlson, Tucker, & Willette, 2002;Meyer et al, 1991), pharmacy information systems (Grams, Zhang, & Yue, 1996;Troiano, 1999), pharmacy dispensing systems (Kaushal et al), clinical decision support systems (CDSSs; Berner, Maisiak, Cobbs, & Taunton, 1999;Wong, Legnini, Whitmore, & Taylor, 2000), handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs; Bates & Gawande), and computer-generated alerts to clinicians (Bates et al, 2001). An article on the importance of PSIT has been published recently elsewhere (Bates & Gawande).…”