In this study, nurses at a Veterans Affairs hospital were surveyed regarding their experiences with medication errors and their perception of the effect of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and bar code medication administration (BCMA) on the incidence of errors. Nurses identified many reasons for medication errors, including fatigue and illegible physician handwriting. While most nurses had filed an incident report due to a medication error, the majority agreed that some errors go unreported due to fear of criticism from management or colleagues. The implementation of CPOE and BCMA was associated with a lower perceived incidence of errors.