In one study, CPOE with CDS had a substantial diminution in errors in prescribing that were between 17 and 201 for every 100 orders. The potential number of adverse drug events (ADEs) declined by 0.9%. For certain medications for kidney diseases where the dose was too high, there was a 31% diminution in those errors. (CPOE article A)
In a study on pediatric patients, CPOE with CDS was thought to be able to prevent nearly 2 out of every 3 errors and over 4 out of every ten errors that would be harmful. The pediatric patients are at a several times greater risk for ADEs than adult patients . (CPOE article D)
COE can be set up to make calculations …show more content…
A report from the Institute of Medicine in 2006 supported the use of e- prescribing to decrease the number of medication errors. E- prescribing is looked on by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a way to help in the universal use of electronic health records and creating a country wide information health infrastructure. It is expected that e-prescribing will improve quality and safety in health care by preventing prescriptions from being duplicated, having alerts for drug interactions and allergies, and having certain tools to assist in having the appropriate dose be prescribed. It is part of meaningful use. In order to receive certain federal payments regarding meaningful use, at least four out of every ten prescriptions must be by e-prescribing. E-prescribing is expected to reduce pharmacy costs and decrease medication errors. The latter is done by linking the system to CDS and the EHR, and of course, eliminating difficulty in interpreting handwriting. The decrease in errors could be by half in one report. However, others report the potential of a much larger decrease in errors by as much as about 85%. Furthermore, some predict that over the next decade there could be savings of as much as 240 billion dollars as the result of e-prescribing. Also, there is software to make it easier to keep track of when a refill is needed and decrease the time to make refill prescriptions. It is also more challenging for an individual to make up a fraudulent prescription. However, there are also new types of errors associated with e-prescribing. (CMS.gov. E-prescribing). (e-prescribing article V, VI, VII, VIII) E-prescribing is often associated with CPOE. (CPOE article