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PS-019 Results of pharmaceutical interventions in electronic prescribing
  1. I Gutiérrez Pérez,
  2. P Gemio Zumalave,
  3. S Lorenzo Martin,
  4. M Ladrón de Guevara,
  5. F Uriarte Estefanía,
  6. E Parra Alonso
  1. Hospital Sierrallana, Servicio de Farmacia, Torrelavega, Spain

Abstract

Background The pharmaceutical validation procedure itself reduces a large number of medicines errors. The Electronic Prescribing System (EPS) is a computerised physician order entry and clinical decision support system. Its advantages are the opportunity to standardise clinical practice and avoid the transcription of prescriptions.

Purpose We identified pharmaceutical interventions (PIs with the objective of improving the safety of medical care and for their influence in clinical practice.

Material and methods We identified PIs for 6 months after the implementation of the EPS. PIs were classified into 2 groups: firstly wrong use of the tool and secondly to conduct pharmacotherapeutic monitoring (FTM). The pharmacist, via an internal messaging system, wrote recommendations to the prescriber before the dispensing and administration of medicines. Subsequently we quantified the PIs for the next 6 months in order to assess whether these interventions contributed to an improvement in prescribing.

Results The hospital ward has an average of 32 patients with 275 prescriptions per day. During the first part of the study there were 588 PIs of which 279 (47%) were due to wrong use of the EPS. In the second part there were 431 PIs (26.7% fewer than in the previous period), 39% (39.42% fewer than previously) were due to the use of the program. The main errors in the use of the program were prescribing ”if it is needed”, the shortening of the duration of treatment, choice of frequencies, prescription of insulin, etc. FTM errors (52.5% during the first part and 60.98% in the second) were related to inadequate following of the Hospital Formulary, recommendations for alternative medicines, avoiding duplication, choice of pharmaceutical form, dose in the elderly, wrong frequency, route or dose, etc.

Conclusion Pharmaceutical validation can substantially increase the safety of the drug treatment process. PIs contribute to improving physicians’ performance in the use of EPS and to reducing medicines errors.

References and/or acknowledgements No conflict of interest.

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