IT: High prescription error rates at wired hospital

The conventional wisdom in health IT is that e-prescribing cuts down on preventable medical errors. A study done at the Salt Lake City VA Hospital appears to cast some doubt on that conclusion. A joint team from the University of Utah and the Veterans Administration looked at adverse drug events and found a much higher than expected number of ordering errors.

The authors conclude that decision-support software is needed to help physicians make better use of CPOE systems. The study is the second in the past few months to criticize information technology at the VA. A recent report from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University was harshly critical of HealtheVet, the agency's 10-year plan to upgrade its system.

- see this report from the Archives of Internal Medicine

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