Misuse of prescription opioids represents a serious patient safety issue. Using commercial claims from 2014 - 2018, researchers examined the association between the 2016 CDC guidelines to reduce unsafe opioid prescribing and opioid dispensing for patients with four common chronic pain diagnoses. Findings indicate that the release of the 2016 guidelines was associated with reductions in the percentage of patients receiving opioids, average dose prescribed, percentage receiving high-dose prescriptions, number of days supplied, and the percentage of patients receiving concurrent opioid/benzodiazepine prescriptions. The authors observe that questions remain about how clinicians are tailoring opioid reductions using a patient-centered approach.

Despite public policies and guidelines to reduce opioid prescribing, providers continue to overprescribe these medications to children, adolescents, and young adults. In this analysis of US retail pharmacy data, 3.5% of US children and young adults were dispensed at least one opioid prescription; nearly half of those included at least one factor indicating they were high risk. Consistent with prior research, dentists and surgeons were the most frequent prescribers, writing 61% of all opiate prescriptions.

The goal of the patient centered medical home (PCMH)  model is to reorganize primary care to provide team-based, coordinated, accessible health care. This study used a consensus process with input from a physician panel to examine ambulatory patient safety concerns (e.g., medication safety, diagnostic error, treatment delays, communication or coordination errors) in the context of the PCMH model and explore variability in the implementation of patient safety practices.

Computerized prescriber order entry (CPOE) systems embedded in electronic health systems alert clinicians to potential safety concerns such as drug-drug interactions or medication dosage errors. Results of this review indicate that alerts influenced prescriber behavior in most of the included studies. However, it is unclear whether these behavioral changes improve patient safety outcomes. Recommendations for future research include randomized controlled trials to determine which alerts maximize patient safety, while minimizing prescribers’ alert fatigue.

Computerized prescriber (or physician) order entry (CPOE) systems are widely used in healthcare and studies have shown a reduction in medication errors with CPOE. This study focused on whether CPOE systems improved the incidence of chemotherapy-related medication errors. The study included 11 studies in the review but only 8 studies were in the meta-analysis. The authors found that the use of CPOE was associated with an 81% reduction in chemotherapy-related medication errors, indicating that CPOE is a valuable strategy for this patient population.

Health information technology (HIT) can promote patient safety in many settings. This systematic review found that HIT, such as computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems, can improve safe prescribing practices in long-term care settings, including improved documentation and clinical processes, and fewer medication errors.

Medication errors occur frequently in ambulatory care settings. This article describes the development and testing of an ambulatory medication safety evaluation tool, which is based on an inpatient version administered by The Leapfrog Group. Pilot testing at seven clinics around the US indicates that clinics struggled in areas of advanced decision support such as drug age and drug monitoring, and that most clinics lacked EHR-based medication reconciliation functions.

Polypharmacy in older adults is common and may increase risk of medication-related adverse events. This study found that an intervention combining educational training, tailored health information technology, and a therapy check process improved medication appropriateness in nursing home residents.  

Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) can prevent prescribing errors, but patient safety threats persist. Based on qualitative interviews with multidisciplinary prescribers, the authors identified several issues related to CPOE interacting within a complex prescribing environment, including alert fatigue, remote prescribing, and default auto-population of dosages.

Health information technology has the potential to improve patient safety in both inpatient and outpatient settings. This systematic review explored the effect of technology networks across health systems (e.g., linking patient records across different organizations) on care coordination and medication reconciliation for older adults living at home. The authors identified several barriers to use of such networks but did not identify robust evidence on their association with safety-related outcomes.

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.

Medications, particularly those with significant side effects, may be considered inappropriate for prescribing in elderly patients and can result in adverse outcomes.This study examined the impact of an automated electronic health record (EHR)-based support tool on potentially inappropriate medication doses in hospitalized elderly adults (age 75 and above) prescribed medications with geriatric-specific dose consideration. Among commonly ordered medications (such as antipsychotics, opioid- and non-opioid pain relievers, sleep agents, and anticholinergics), the support tool helped align drug doses for older adults and reduced total daily dose and average dose.

Over the last decade, children have experienced a dramatic rise in hospitalizations and intensive care unit stays related to opioid use. Based on Medicaid claims in North Carolina, prescribers of opioids for children were most commonly physicians and dentists. More than 3% of children ages 1 to 17 years had at least one opioid prescription filled annually; 76.6 children per 100,000 experienced an opioid-related adverse event or other harm. Adolescents ages 15 to 17 years disproportionately experienced these harms compared to younger age groups. Black and urban children were less likely to fill opioid prescriptions or experience adverse events, but they were more likely to experience other opioid-related harm, such as abuse or dependence.   

Machine learning can improve the accuracy of clinical decision support (CDS) tools. This single-site study used data from the electronic health record (EHR) and clinical pharmacist review to test the accuracy of a hybrid CDS system to identify prescriptions with high risk of medication error. The machine-learning based approach was more accurate than existing techniques such as the traditional CDS system and can improve the reliability of prescription checks in an inpatient setting.  

This commentary presents two cases of near-miss wrong-patient order errors between mother-newborn pairs and discusses the unique threat the postpartum setting presents to electronic order safety. The article highlights opportunities for systems improvement.

This systematic review explored how artificial intelligence (AI) based on machine learning algorithms and natural language processing is used to address and report patient safety outcomes. The review suggests that AI-enabled decision support systems can improve error detection, patient stratification, and drug management, but that additional evidence is needed to understand how well AI can predict safety outcomes.  

Using data from the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) Evaluation Tool, this study compared hospital performance against fatal orders and nuisance orders. From 2017 to 2018, overall performance increased and fatal order performance improved slightly; there was no significant change in nuisance order performance; however, these results indicate that fatal alerts are not being prioritized and that over-alerting in some cases may be contributing to alert fatigue.

This systematic review of the cumulative effect of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) identified significant decreases in medication errors and adverse drug events in inpatient settings but the authors note considerable variation in the magnitude of risk reduction. No significant reductions in inpatient mortality or length of stay were identified. 

Researchers measured the safety performance of electronic health record (EHR) systems using simulated medication orders that can lead to adverse events or death in order to evaluate how well the systems identified these errors, and the mitigating effect of computerized physician order entry and clinical decision support (CDS) tools. Safety performance increased moderately over the 10-year study period but there was considerable variation in performance based on the level of decision support (basic or more complex) and EHR vendor; safety risks persist despite EHR implementation.

Using a pre-post approach, this study assessed the impact of implementing electronic prescribing and smart pump-facilitated standard concentration infusions on medication errors in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). The overall error rates were similar before and after implementation but the error types changed before and after implementation of these tools. After implementation, lack of clarity, incomplete orders and wrong unit errors were reduced but dosing errors, altered orders and duplicate errors increased. Pre-implementation, 78% of errors were deemed preventable by electronic prescribing and smart-pumps; post-implementation 27% of errors were attributed to the technology and would not have occurred if the order was not electronically created or administered via the smart-pump.