How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Peter J. Gates; Rae-Anne Hardie; Magdalena Z. Raban; Ling Li; Johanna I. Westbrook

Review

Emerging Classic

How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

December 2, 2020

Gates PJ, Hardie R-A, Raban MZ, et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2021;28(1):167-176.

View more articles from the same authors.

Electronic prescribing systems (such as computerized provider order entry) can aid in medication reconciliation and prevent medication errors. In this systematic review, the authors found variable evidence about the effectiveness of these systems for medication error and harm reduction. Included studies reported reductions in error rates, but implementation of electronic systems did not result in less patient harm.

PubMed citation

Available at

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

Are operating room distractions, interruptions, and disruptions associated with performance and patient safety? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

May 19, 2021

Associations between double-checking and medication administration errors: a direct observational study of paediatric inpatients.

August 26, 2020

Short- and long-term effects of an electronic medication management system on paediatric prescribing errors.

January 18, 2023

Variation in electronic test results management and its implications for patient safety: a multisite investigation.

August 19, 2020

Effectiveness of a 'Do not interrupt' bundled intervention to reduce interruptions during medication administration: a cluster randomised controlled feasibility study.

March 15, 2017

Risk factors associated with medication ordering errors.

December 16, 2020

Nurse workarounds in the electronic health record: an integrative review.

August 12, 2020

A machine learning-based clinical decision support system to identify prescriptions with a high risk of medication error.

October 21, 2020

Associations of physicians’ prescribing experience, work hours, and workload with prescription errors.

November 18, 2020

Standardising the classification of harm associated with medication errors: the Harm Associated with Medication Error Classification (HAMEC).

May 15, 2019

The tradeoffs between safety and alert fatigue: data from a national evaluation of hospital medication-related clinical decision support.

July 29, 2020

Safe use of the EHR by medical scribes: a qualitative study.

November 18, 2020

Bias at warp speed: how AI may contribute to the disparities gap in the time of COVID-19.

September 9, 2020

Are interventions to reduce interruptions and errors during medication administration effective?: a systematic review.

September 11, 2013

Enabling a learning healthcare system with automated computer protocols that produce replicable and personalized clinician actions.

August 4, 2021

Preventable medication harm across health care settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 17, 2021

Patient safety and quality improvement: ethical principles for a regulatory approach to bias in healthcare machine learning.

July 22, 2020

Recommendations for the safe, effective use of adaptive CDS in the US healthcare system: an AMIA position paper.

April 21, 2021

CancelRx: a health IT tool to reduce medication discrepancies in the outpatient setting.

September 1, 2021

Stepped-wedge cluster RCT to assess the effects of an electronic medication system on medication administration errors.

March 13, 2024

Trust and medical AI: the challenges we face and the expertise needed to overcome them.

April 21, 2021

Changes in unprofessional behaviour, teamwork, and co-operation among hospital staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

September 28, 2022

Impact of digitally acquired peer diagnostic input on diagnostic confidence in outpatient cases: a pragmatic randomized trial.

December 2, 2020

Electronic health record-based prediction models for in-hospital adverse drug event diagnosis or prognosis: a systematic review.

March 29, 2023

Incidence and characteristics of adverse events in paediatric inpatient care: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

January 25, 2023

Nursing interventions to reduce medication errors in paediatrics and neonates: systematic review and meta-analysis.

December 8, 2021

Alert burden in pediatric hospitals: a cross-sectional analysis of six academic pediatric health systems using novel metrics.

November 3, 2021

Association between physician burnout and self-reported errors: meta-analysis.

January 26, 2022

Association of intraoperative anaesthesia handovers with patient morbidity and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

November 4, 2020

Task errors by emergency physicians are associated with interruptions, multitasking, fatigue and working memory capacity: a prospective, direct observation study.

January 31, 2018

Impact of pharmacist interventions on medication errors in hospitalized pediatric patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

October 14, 2020

Clinical data sharing improves quality measurement and patient safety.

March 24, 2021

August 19, 2020

Pharmacist-led educational interventions provided to healthcare providers to reduce medication errors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

August 4, 2021

Implementing patient and family involvement interventions for promoting patient safety: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 17, 2021

Rate of preventable mortality in hospitalized patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

April 1, 2020

Association between limiting the number of open records in a tele-critical care setting and retract-reorder errors.

July 21, 2021

Improving our understanding of multi-tasking in healthcare: drawing together the cognitive psychology and healthcare literature.

March 29, 2017

Safety risks and workflow implications associated with nursing-related free-text communication orders.

March 15, 2023

Indication alerts to improve problem list documentation.

January 26, 2022

Discontinuation of outpatient medications: implications for electronic messaging to pharmacies using CancelRx.

December 7, 2022

Outcomes of medication misadventure among people with cognitive impairment or dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

July 21, 2021

Underlying risk factors for prescribing errors in long-term aged care: a qualitative study.

December 9, 2015

High-priority drug-drug interaction clinical decision support overrides in a newly implemented commercial computerized provider order-entry system: override appropriateness and adverse drug events.

May 20, 2020

Effect on diagnostic accuracy of cognitive reasoning tools for the workplace setting: systematic review and meta-analysis.

September 14, 2022

Resident duty hours and resident and patient outcomes: systematic review and meta-analysis.

November 16, 2022

Prevalence, contributory factors and severity of medication errors associated with direct-acting oral anticoagulants in adult patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

January 12, 2022

Associations of physician burnout with career engagement and quality of patient care: systematic review and meta-analysis.

September 28, 2022

Validation of an electronic trigger to measure missed diagnosis of stroke in emergency departments.

August 25, 2021

The association between health care staff engagement and patient safety outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 3, 2021

Maybe they had a bad day: how LGBTQ and BIPOC patients react to bias in healthcare and struggle to speak out.

September 14, 2022

Systems approach to health service design, delivery and improvement: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 3, 2021

ASHP national survey of pharmacy practice in hospital settings: prescribing and transcribing-2019.

September 30, 2020

Surgeon burnout, impact on patient safety and professionalism: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

March 16, 2022

The potential for leveraging machine learning to filter medication alerts.

May 4, 2022

It's like sending a message in a bottle: a qualitative study of the consequences of one-way communication technologies in hospitals.

October 13, 2021

An objective framework for evaluating unrecognized bias in medical AI models predicting COVID-19 outcomes.

June 1, 2022

March 16, 2022

Deprescribing for community-dwelling older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

September 16, 2020

Which adverse events and which drugs are implicated in drug-related hospital admissions? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

March 22, 2023

Applying requisite imagination to safeguard electronic health record transitions.

May 18, 2022

Examining medication ordering errors using AHRQ Network of Patient Safety Databases.

February 22, 2023

Variation in detected adverse events using trigger tools: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

September 21, 2022

Communication through the electronic health record: frequency and implications of free text orders.

July 29, 2020

Adverse events during intrahospital transport of critically ill patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 9, 2022

Inviting patients to identify diagnostic concerns through structured evaluation of their online visit notes.

April 13, 2022

Automated capture of intraoperative adverse events using artificial intelligence: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

March 15, 2023

Improving patient safety and efficiency of medication reconciliation through the development and adoption of a computer-assisted tool with automated electronic integration of population-based community drug data: the RightRx project.

January 10, 2018

Outcomes and patient safety in overlapping vs. nonoverlapping total joint arthroplasty: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

January 19, 2022

"Are we there yet?" Ten persistent hazards and inefficiencies with the use of medication administration technology from the perspective of practicing nurses.

March 22, 2023

How satisfied are patients and surgeons with telemedicine in orthopaedic care during the COVID-19 pandemic? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

February 10, 2021

Effects of rapid response systems on clinical outcomes: systematic review and meta-analysis.

January 2, 2008

Potentially inappropriate prescribing and its associations with health-related and system-related outcomes in hospitalised older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

January 19, 2022

Patient engagement in the inpatient setting: a systematic review.

December 18, 2013

Impact of providing patients access to electronic health records on quality and safety of care: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

July 8, 2020

Provider-patient communication and hospital ratings: perceived gaps and forward thinking about the effects of COVID-19.

December 16, 2020

ASHP National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Hospital Settings: clinical services and workforce-2021.

October 19, 2022

Errors in breast imaging: how to reduce errors and promote a safety environment.

July 7, 2021

Prevalence, causes and severity of medication administration errors in the neonatal intensive care unit: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

December 14, 2022

February 2, 2022

Evolving factors in hospital safety: a systematic review and meta-analysis of hospital adverse events.

September 29, 2021

Using automated methods to detect safety problems with health information technology: a scoping review.

February 8, 2023

Can decision support combat incompleteness and bias in routine primary care data?

April 7, 2021

Preliminary study of patient safety and quality use cases for ICD-11 MMS.

September 15, 2021

Effect of patient safety education interventions on patient safety culture of health care professionals: systematic review and meta-analysis.

March 29, 2023

How safe is prehospital care? A systematic review.

November 17, 2021

Effectiveness of pharmacist intervention to reduce medication errors and health-care resources utilization after transitions of care: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

July 19, 2017

Renal medication-related clinical decision support (CDS) alerts and overrides in the inpatient setting following implementation of a commercial electronic health record: implications for designing more effective alerts.

February 17, 2021

Impact of pharmacist interventions provided in the emergency department on quality use of medicines: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

March 8, 2023

Ambulatory medication safety in primary care: a systematic review.

July 6, 2022

Association of interruptions with an increased risk and severity of medication administration errors.

May 5, 2010

How do hospital inpatients conceptualise patient safety? A qualitative interview study using constructivist grounded theory.

October 19, 2022

The prevalence of dose errors among paediatric patients in hospital wards with and without health information technology: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

October 24, 2018

Care coordination strategies and barriers during medication safety incidents: a qualitative, cognitive task analysis.

March 10, 2021

Adverse events associated with patient isolation: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

January 19, 2022

Managing competing demands through task-switching and multitasking: a multi-setting observational study of 200 clinicians over 1000 hours.

February 26, 2014

Organizational characteristics and perceptions of clinical event notification services in healthcare settings: a study of health information exchange.

December 23, 2020

Establishing a multidisciplinary taskforce to improve anticoagulation safety at a large health system.

December 12, 2021

The psychological and mental impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on medical staff and general public - a systematic review and meta-analysis.

July 15, 2020

The delivery of safe and effective test result communication, management and follow-up.

September 27, 2023

Related Resources

Electronic medication reconciliation tools aimed at healthcare professionals to support medication reconciliation: a systematic review.

February 28, 2024

Temporarily holding medication orders safely in order to prevent patient harm.

November 1, 2023

A hard look at hard stops and workarounds in the acute care setting.

July 12, 2023

Impact of a computerized physician order entry system on medication safety in pediatrics-The AVOID study.

June 7, 2023

Patient Safety Innovations

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

May 31, 2023

Danger in discharge summaries: abbreviations create confusion for both author and recipient.

May 31, 2023

Improving medication safety in a paediatric hospital: a mixed-methods evaluation of a newly implemented computerised provider order entry system.

April 12, 2023

Indication documentation and indication-based prescribing within electronic prescribing systems: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.

April 5, 2023

Perspectives on Safety

Annual Perspective

Technology as a Tool for Improving Patient Safety

March 29, 2023

Quality and safety: learning from the past and (re)imagining the future.

March 29, 2023

"Are we there yet?" Ten persistent hazards and inefficiencies with the use of medication administration technology from the perspective of practicing nurses.

March 22, 2023

Safety risks and workflow implications associated with nursing-related free-text communication orders.

March 15, 2023

Improving administration and documentation of enteral nutrition support therapy in a Veteran Affairs health care system: use of medication administration record and bar code scanning technology.

February 1, 2023

Short- and long-term effects of an electronic medication management system on paediatric prescribing errors.

January 18, 2023

Weight and size descriptors for drug dosing: too many options and too many errors.

January 11, 2023

Electronic prescribing systems in hospitals to improve medication safety: a multi-methods research programme.

December 21, 2022

Safety considerations for challenges when using smart infusion pumps.

November 2, 2022

Duplicate medication order errors: safety gaps and recommendations for improvement.

October 12, 2022

Free-text computerized provider order entry orders used as workaround for communicating medication information.

August 31, 2022

Development and pilot evaluation of an electronic health record usability and safety self-assessment tool.

August 24, 2022

The impact of drug error reduction software on preventing harmful adverse drug events in England: a retrospective database study.

August 24, 2022

The electronic prescribing of subcutaneous infusions: a before-and-after study assessing the impact upon patient safety and service efficiency.

June 15, 2022

Indication alerts to improve problem list documentation.

January 26, 2022

Association between limiting the number of open records in a tele-critical care setting and retract-reorder errors.

July 21, 2021

Interventions to reduce pediatric prescribing errors in professional healthcare settings: a systematic review of the last decade.

June 23, 2021

Advanced medication reconciliation: a systematic review of the impact on medication errors and adverse drug events associated with transitions of care.

June 16, 2021

The effectiveness of interruptive prescribing alerts in ambulatory CPOE to change prescriber behaviour and improve safety.

May 5, 2021

A qualitative study of prescribing errors among multi-professional prescribers within an e-prescribing system.

December 23, 2020

Hospital medication errors: a cross sectional study.

December 23, 2020

Closing the loop on test results to reduce communication failures: a rapid review of evidence, practice and patient perspectives.

November 25, 2020

See More About The Topic

Hospitals

Quality and Safety Professionals

Information Professionals

Hospital Medicine

Nurse Care

How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Remote Response Team and Customized Alert Settings Help Improve Management of Sepsis

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site