A new study found that technology-related errors (TREs) were a significant issue in the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system of one pediatric hospital, with 1 in 3 prescribing errors being linked to technology.
The research, published Sept. 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, was conducted in a large tertiary pediatric hospital and examined how TREs evolved over a four-year period following the implementation of CPOE. The errors, often tied to the design and functionality of the system, accounted for a substantial amount of prescribing mistakes, with rates reaching 43% of all errors four years post-implementation.
The study also found that TRE rates declined in the first year after CPOE was introduced, but later stabilized at 1.11 errors per 100 orders. Some of the common TRE mechanisms included incorrect selection from drop-down menus, editing errors and errors due to system configurations that differed from previous paper-based workflows.
High-risk medications like insulin and oxycodone were in the majority of the errors.