Medication Errors: A Prospective Study Conducted and Reported Through Prescription Monitoring in Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Objective: This study was conducted to know the occurrence of medication errors by monitoring the Physician order entry (POE) error, Hand written prescribing (HWP) error. Methodology: The study was conducted in tertiary care teaching hospital, which is located at southern part of India having 1210 beds. Totally 3600 prescriptions were audited for the POE and HWP. Results: The total proportion of MEs was significantly lesser with POE (707 errors from 1600 prescriptions, 44.18%) than with HWP (1094 errors from 2000 prescriptions, 54.7%). The proportion of errors reduced with time following the introduction of POE. Two errors with POE resulted in morbidity to patient consequently made to increase in hospital stay and in our study, we find out various types of MEs and HWP during study period. There was a reduction in major/ moderate patient outcomes with POE. Conclusion: Introduction of POE was associated with a reduction in the proportion of MEs and an improvement in the overall patient outcome. Moderate and major errors, however, remain a significant concern with POE.Objective: This study was conducted to know the occurrence of medication errors by monitoring the Physician order entry (POE) error, Hand written prescribing (HWP) error. Methodology: The study was conducted in tertiary care teaching hospital, which is located at southern part of India having 1210 beds. Totally 3600 prescriptions were audited for the POE and HWP. Results: The total proportion of MEs was significantly lesser with POE (707 errors from 1600 prescriptions, 44.18%) than with HWP (1094 errors from 2000 prescriptions, 54.7%). The proportion of errors reduced with time following the introduction of POE. Two errors with POE resulted in morbidity to patient consequently made to increase in hospital stay and in our study, we find out various types of MEs and HWP during study period. There was a reduction in major/ moderate patient outcomes with POE. Conclusion: Introduction of POE was associated with a reduction in the proportion of MEs and an improvement in the overall patient outcome. Moderate and major errors, however, remain a significant concern with POE.