Even with the use of clinical decision support systems (CDSS), clinicians can still make medication prescribing errors. This study compared frequency, type, and severity of prescribing errors between junior doctors (i.e., those in training with less than 10 years’ work experience) and consultants (i.e., not in training with 10 or more years of work experience).  Overall prescribing errors were low, but junior doctors made more errors than consultants. They also made different types of errors, with junior doctors more likely to make drug-drug interaction errors and consultants making duplication therapy errors. There were no differences in severity of errors. Early education and training with computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and CDSS may reduce errors made by doctors in training.

Adverse events, such as medication errors, are a major cause of hospital admissions. This retrospective study of a subset of OPERAM intervention patients who were readmitted with a potentially preventable drug-related admission (DRA) examined whether use of STOPP/START criteria during in-hospital medication review can identify medication errors prior to a potentially preventable DRA. Researchers found that medication errors identified at readmission could not be addressed by prior in-hospital medication reviews because the medication error occurred after the in-hospital review or because recommended medication regimen changes were not provided or not implemented.

… and reducing potentially preventable readmissions is a patient safety priority . This study found that 16% of …

More than half of hospitalized patients in this Dutch study experienced an adverse drug event, most of which were not preventable and had minimal clinical consequences.

This case-control study attempted to identify factors that predicted whether patient harm resulted from medication errors.

… of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA … J Am Med Inform Assoc … A decision support system combined with computerized provider …

This study found that pharmacy technicians led to significant decreases in medication discrepancies.

Although most inpatient adverse drug events are considered preventable, this study found that independent reviewers reached only fair agreement regarding the preventability of individual errors.