Medication safety in children is a patient safety priority. This systematic review explored interventions to reduce medication dispensing, administration, and monitoring errors in pediatric healthcare settings. The majority of identified studies used “administrative controls” to prevent errors, but those implementing higher-level interventions (such as smart pumps and mandatory barcode scanning) were more likely to result in error reduction.

Pediatric patients are at risk for medication prescribing errors due to weight-based dosing. This review analyzed 70 interventions aimed at reducing weight-based prescribing errors. Findings indicate that bundled interventions are most effective, and that interventions should include substitute or engineering controls (e.g., computerized provider order entry) along with administrative controls (e.g., expert consultation).

Parenteral nutrition dosing and preparation is complex and error-prone. This prospective study found that even with computer provider order entry, clinical pharmacist review identified errors in 4% of orders. The authors suggest that pharmacist review be included as part of the parenteral nutrition ordering process in order to prevent adverse events.