Adverse drug events are prevalent in outpatient care. In this study, pharmacists and physicians reviewed electronic health records and conducted telephone interviews with patients to determine whether they experienced an adverse drug event during a change in medications. Less than 10% of patients experienced an adverse drug event, which the authors conclude represents an improvement compared to prior studies.

Medication errors remain one of the most challenging problems in patient safety. Despite extensive investments in technological solutions such as computerized provider order entry and barcode medication administration systems, these errors still persist. This study examined all medication errors (detected by using trigger tools) over a 1-year period at an academic medical center. The investigators found that half of the errors could not have been prevented by the institution's health information technology (IT) system, and many of the avoidable errors occurred because clinicians used workarounds to bypass IT safety features. A case of a serious antibiotic overdose that took place at a fully computerized children's hospital is discussed in a recent book about the fundamental changes in health care resulting from widespread technology implementation.

In this retrospective review of pediatric medication alerts, more than 85% of dosing alerts presented to clinicians were inappropriate. Frequent incorrect alerts contribute to alert fatigue and make clinicians more likely to override appropriate warnings.

… of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA … J Am Med Inform Assoc … A number of computerized clinical …