The impact of electronic prescription on reducing medication errors in an Egyptian outpatient clinic

Objectives: To assess the impact of electronic prescription on the types and rates of medication errors in prescribing and dispensing phases, and to formulate recommendations on the use of electronic prescriptions in Egyptian outpatient practice. Methods: Medication errors and correction interventions were collected by reviewing the incident reports obtained from the outpatient pharmacy in a specialized hospital in Egypt. A data collection form was used to classify the errors. The Main outcome measures are prescribing and prescription errors, dispensing errors, error free prescriptions, pharmacy call-backs and phone calls for five months before and five months after the electronic system implementation. Results: 3512 incident reports were reviewed for errors in the hand-written and electronic phases. The use of electronic system led to a minor significant 2% reduction in prescribing errors, significant 1.2% decrease in dispensing errors, and significant 18.2% increase in the error free prescriptions (p < 0.05). Indication and omission prescribing errors were increased significantly (1.7%, p < 0.0001)in the electronic phase. The electronic system failed to significantly decrease some types of dispensing errors like wrong medicine and wrong dosage form. No difference was detected in the volume of communications between pharmacists and prescribers. Conclusion: Electronic prescribing is able to reduce prescribing and dispensing errors associated with the use of hand-written prescriptions in the Egyptian outpatient clinic, however, more advanced and trusted systems are likely needed for more efficient effect on error rates and pharmacy workflow.