Reducing the cost of healthcare must be balanced with the anticipated impact on patient safety. This analysis highlights the impact of budget caps on savings and patient safety. Results show budget caps do increase savings on the eight most common conditions in the United States, but can also result in patient harm.

This study of a quality improvement initiative found that automated screening of prescribing data uncovered many potential adverse drug events. Prescribers were notified about these safety concerns, and almost 80% of these potential adverse drug events were resolved through prescription changes. The extent of patient harm which occurred or was averted was not reported. This work suggests that real-time data from electronic prescribing could be harnessed to improve patient safety, as others have suggested.