1. The impact of transition to a digital hospital on medication errors (TIME study)
- Author
-
Teyl Engstrom, Elizabeth McCourt, Martin Canning, Katharine Dekker, Panteha Voussoughi, Oliver Bennett, Angela North, Jason D. Pole, Peter J. Donovan, and Clair Sullivan
- Subjects
Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 - Abstract
Abstract Digital transformation in healthcare improves the safety of health systems. Within our health service, a new digital hospital has been established and two wards from a neighbouring paper-based hospital transitioned into the new digital hospital. This created an opportunity to evaluate the impact of complete digital transformation on medication safety. Here we discuss the impact of transition from a paper-based to digital hospital on voluntarily reported medication incidents and prescribing errors. This study utilises an interrupted time-series design and takes place across two wards as they transition from a paper to a digital hospital. Two data sources are used to assess impacts on medication incidents and prescribing errors: (1) voluntarily reported medication incidents and 2) a chart audit of medications prescribed on the study wards. The chart audit collects data on procedural, dosing and therapeutic prescribing errors. There are 588 errors extracted from incident reporting software during the study period. The average monthly number of errors reduces from 12.5 pre- to 7.5 post-transition (p
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF