Support Tools Reduce Paediatric Prescription Errors, Study Says

Adding clinical decision support systems (CDSS) to computerised physician order entry (CPOE) tools can significantly reduce prescription errors in paediatric intensive care units (PICU), according to a new research published in Paediatrics.

Researchers analysed 5,000 medical orders in a PICU to evaluate changes in prescription error rates with the introduction of CPOE with and without a CDSS limited to monitor weight-based dosing.

The study found that the introduction of CDSS reduced prescription errors and potential adverse drug events considerably while the implementation of CPOE alone reduced errors by a only small margin.