PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Vittery, Emma Rebecca
AU  - Bayliss, Emily
AU  - Heed, Andrew
AU  - Fagan, Claire
AU  - Thomas, Matthew
AU  - Tse, Yincent
TI  - Reducing prescribing errors: making electronic prescribing work for cystic fibrosis inpatients
AID  - 10.1136/archdischild-2021-322446
DP  - 2022 Mar 09
TA  - Archives of disease in childhood - Education & practice edition
PG  - edpract-2021-322446
4099  - http://ep.bmj.com/content/early/2022/03/08/archdischild-2021-322446.short
4100  - http://ep.bmj.com/content/early/2022/03/08/archdischild-2021-322446.full
AB  - Children admitted to our hospital with cystic fibrosis had frequent medication errors due to polypharmacy and addition of specialist and high-risk medications despite an electronic prescribing and medicines administration system in place. We describe a multidisciplinary quality improvement project that combined a computerised order entry system (CPOE) with human factor process changes. Over 12 months, our run chart showed a 43% reduction in prescription errors. For medications prescribable via the CPOE, errors reaching the patient reduced from 50% to 29%. Electronic prescribing can be seen by clinicians as a fixed unalterable system contributing to rather than ameliorating errors. Improving safety requires whole team engagement and working closely with programmers to adapt function and influence human factors.Data are available upon reasonable request. Not applicable.