In theory, electronic prescribing systems may improve patient safety by providing important information about potential drug allergies and drug interactions. Unfortunately, healthcare providers often override most of these medication safety alerts, according to a study published in the February 9, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine

In theory, electronic prescribing systems may improve patient safety by providing important information about potential drug allergies and drug interactions. Unfortunately, healthcare providers often override most of these medication safety alerts, according to a study published in the February 9, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine .

Investigators from Harvard Medical School and their colleagues performed an analysis of 233,537 medication safety alerts generated by 2,872 healthcare providers in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania who all use the same electronic prescribing system from January 1, 2006 through September 30, 2006. They found that a total of 6.6% of electronic prescription attempts generated medication safety alerts. Of these alerts, clinicians accept only 9.2% of drug interaction notifications and 23% of allergy notifications. Not surprisingly, high-severity alerts were more likely to be accepted.

According to the investigators, one of the reasons so many alerts are overridden is the sheer volume of alerts generated by electronic prescribing systems, including alerts for unlikely events. They suggest that an electronic prescribing system that generates more pertinent alerts might make electronic prescribing safer and more effective.

Source

Arch Intern Med. 2009;169:305-311.